Inside 260 Sample Sale’s new store concept

Long before lines wrapped around New York City’s blocks for 260 Sample Sale’s cult designer sales, siblings Assaf and Ariel Azani’s father ran an unassuming off-price store filled with merchandise from different vendors.

“Our father started the company, and it wasn’t called 260 Sample Sale at the time,” Assaf, now the company’s CEO, told Retail Brew. “He sort of had a nondescript off-price store with mixed vendors as well.”

Over the years, that business evolved into 260 Sample Sale, one of fashion’s most recognizable event operators, known for weeklong sales featuring everything from cult brands to luxury labels.

Now, after two decades of building an event-driven business, the brothers are returning to their roots with a modern twist.

This summer, the company is formally rebranding its three permanent New York stores under a new banner, Store260. The concept—which operates locations on the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, and in SoHo—offers discounted merchandise from more than 60 brands year-round, spanning apparel, beauty, fragrances, bedding, candles, and home goods.

Over the past 20 years, the company found success with experiential, limited-time events. But the brothers increasingly saw opportunities that didn’t fit into the weeklong sample sale model.

“Sometimes clients don’t have enough product to do a large-format sample sale. Perhaps they don’t want the exposure of doing a sample sale. Perhaps they don’t have the brand awareness to run one weeklong event,” Assaf said, adding that the permanent stores offer “the discounts and the treasures of a sample sale, but without all the stigma that comes with the sample sale—so none of the crowds, individual dressing rooms…and really an ability to offer what is true full-price retail, but still with the same discounts and with a great variety of product.”

Sample opportunity: While the off-price landscape is dominated by giants such as TJX-owned chains and Nordstrom Rack, the Azani brothers are betting that smaller stores and tighter curation can offer something different.

Unlike many off-price retailers, Store260 isn’t built around merchandise manufactured specifically for discount channels.

“We’re not trying to buy product that is made for off-price,” Assaf said. “We’re actually trying to buy product that is retail [available to sell], genuine samples, one-offs. Sometimes it’s the best-selling product that just gets caught up in the supply chain, and that’s the product that needs to be liquidated.”

The stores are also positioned differently than traditional bargain chains. Instead of opening in outlet centers or lower-rent corridors, Store260’s locations are situated in affluent neighborhoods that historically cater to full-price shoppers.

“It’s like disrupting what is full-price activity and introducing our full-price customers to the off-price concept in a format that feels more palatable and less intimidating,” Assaf said.

The company’s online business—which accounts for ~40% of its sales—has also expanded its reach beyond the cities where 260 Sample Sale operates physical locations. In fact, digitally, categories such as jewelry, swimwear, home goods, and interiors have become particularly strong performers, according to the founders.

But despite the rebrand, rapid expansion isn’t necessarily the goal.

“We make a big splash, but it’s still my brother and I,” Assaf said. “A lot of people, when they have a store concept or they go through a rebrand, they have a roadmap to expand to 5, 10, 20 stores within a certain time frame. That’s not the goal here.”

Instead, the brothers say they want to grow carefully.

“The goal here is to make sure that we can expand without diluting the concept,” Assaf said. “We’ve had the opportunity to take private equity. We have had the opportunity to expand aggressively, but we also felt that if we were to do that, something would give.”