Why Lulus is betting big on Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and wholesale in general

For a brand that made its name selling dresses directly to customers online, Lulus has discovered that there’s value in meeting shoppers somewhere decidedly more old school: the department store.

The 30-year-old brand recently expanded into Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, adding to its already burgeoning wholesale footprint that includes Nordstrom, Dillard’s, and Amazon. Lulus will initially operate in 30 Macy’s stores, as well as online, with a collection spanning everyday and special occasion dresses. At Bloomingdale’s, the brand will launch in 16 stores and online, beginning with homecoming, before expanding into resort and other occasion categories.

For CEO Crystal Landsem, the push into wholesale isn’t as much a departure from Lulus’s DTC foundation as it is a response to how its customers now shop.

“My perception is that women are increasingly moving fluidly between digital and physical retail, and we just want Lulus to be available wherever she’s looking for something to wear,” Landsem told Retail Brew.

Store story: Physical retail is especially useful for Lulus given its presence in occasionwear, Landsem said, where customers may want to touch fabrics and try on dresses before buying them.

Plus, that behavior is also surfacing in Lulus’s existing wholesale business. The company, for instance, expanded to Nordstrom stores nationwide earlier this year, and said about 55% of its Nordstrom sales were coming from physical stores. Lulus’s wholesale business grew 143% between 2024 and 2025, and the company said in February that it expected the channel to more than double again in 2026.

The company is taking a different approach to each retailer rather than putting the same types of products everywhere. Macy’s, for example, gives Lulus access to a broader, younger shopper base looking for everything from homecoming and prom dresses to everyday styles, while Bloomingdale’s offers a more fashion-oriented customer and a more curated entry point, Landsem said.

The younger shopper is becoming very important to Lulus since while its core customer base has been essentially millennial for a decade, Gen Z now makes up a growing share of new shoppers, per Landsem.

And despite Gen Z’s reputation as an online-first generation, stores still play a meaningful role in discovery. A McKinsey report from earlier this year found that 28% of Gen Z consumers said they discovered new brands in physical stores, compared with 23% who cited social media.

Full circle: It’s why for Landsem, wholesale is a “profitable brand marketing channel” that can introduce shoppers to Lulus before funneling them back to the company’s website.

And the brand is already seeing this happen. She noted that customer surveys increasingly include shoppers saying they first encountered Lulus through retailers including Dillard’s, Amazon, and Bloomingdale’s before eventually shopping directly with the brand.

“We want to meet her where she is and keep investing in that customer pipeline for our DTC channel, and then getting more direct feedback from her through our DTC channel,” she said.

But that doesn’t mean Lulus is ready to choose between the two channels. DTC remains its largest sales channel, and Landsem said its first-party customer data remains central to decisions around assortment and product development. But with wholesale growing quickly, the company sees substantial room to keep expanding its store presence.

Ultimately, the customer will decide how far the pendulum swings. “Our customer is our muse and our merchant,” Landsem said, “and we go where she tells us to go.”