One Kings Lane

One Kings Lane is a New York-based retailer that sells designer, vintage, and exclusive home furnishings. Its product line includes furniture, rugs, lighting, art and mirrors, bedding and bath, tableware, accessories, and gifts. In addition to its e-commerce site, it has brick-and-mortar stores in Southampton, NY, and as of fall 2018, New York City. It also offers design services and operates a trade program for design professionals.

History

One Kings Lane was co-founded by Susan Feldman, whose background included fashion merchandising for Ralph Lauren and Liz Claiborne, and Alison Pincus, who led digital business development at Hachette Filipacchi. While decorating her new West Hollywood home, Feldman grew frustrated by the lack of high-quality but affordable furnishings available online. She felt there was room in the market for an online seller of curated home furnishings that followed the then-new flash-sale model. A friend introduced her to Pincus in 2008. San Francisco-based Pincus’s first meeting with Feldman was at LAX; “Suzie told me her idea and I couldn’t stop dreaming and thinking about it,” Pincus said.  Feldman focused on One Kings Lane’s merchandising and creative, while Pincus concentrated on business development.

Flash-sale origins

One Kings Lane launched in March 2009, specializing in discounted products from vendors that typically sold only through interior designers and from brands offering high-end, designer, or vintage home furniture and accessories. It advertised savings of up to 70% via daily emails to subscribers.

Key to One Kings Lane’s strategy, and one significant way the company differentiated itself from competitors, was its Tastemaker Tag Sales, in which well-known interior designers and celebrities curated sales. Ann Getty, Martin Lawrence Bullard, and Kathryn Ireland were among the first Tastemaker Tag Sale curators. Other collaborations included overseas sourcing trips with top designers—for instance, trips to India with Nathan Turner and Belgium with Bunny Williams yielded both hundreds of vintage and handcrafted items that were sold on the site as well as blog posts and other content.

In fact, One Kings Lane was a pioneer in content-led commerce, something that remains a cornerstone of its strategy. Its website included—and continues to include—articles, videos, home tours, and tips ranging from how to fold a fitted sheet to the design secrets of the Beverly Hills Hotel. The goal was to contextualize the merchandise and provide shoppers with inspiration and expertise in addition to products.  

In 2015, the company launched The Studio at One Kings Lane, a showroom and interior design studio where customers could receive personalized decorating services from a team of professional in-house designers equipped to handle projects of all sizes.  

Transition and acquisition

By June 2016, when Bed Bath & Beyond purchased One Kings Lane, the latter was well on its journey from the flash-sales model toward one of persistent inventory. It had already started to design its own bedding, furniture, lighting, and decor as a means of providing customers with items available nowhere else. Similarly, its Emerging Artist series introduced up-and-coming talents such as Rankin Willard, David Grey, and Tell Duncan to a new audience.

One Kings Lane continues to operate an autonomous retail strategy, selling across a mix of price points to both consumers and, via its To the Trade program, design professionals. As part of the Bed Bath & Beyond portfolio, One Kings Lane now has the ability to invest in growth drivers and reduce its cost structure, enabling it to engage and expand its loyal customer base. Among these investments was its first shop, which opened Memorial Day weekend 2017. Located in Southampton, NY, the shop occupies the town’s iconic former Rogers Memorial Library, built in 1895 and designed by renowned architect R.H. Robertson, at 11 Jobs Lane. The store gives shoppers access to a breadth of the brand’s assortment, consultations with in-house interior designers, and unique retail entertainment.

Evolution into multichannel lifestyle brand

In 2017, One Kings Lane repositioned its brand to communicate that it was no longer a flash-sales site.  The new slogan was “Live Your Style,” with the secondary tagline “Designer, vintage, and exclusive furnishings for every style—including your own” was intended to speak to the company’s mission of helping consumers create homes that reflect their own unique personal style mix.  

As part of its goal to become a comprehensive source of home furnishings, the company expanded its range of proprietary product. The products, many designed in response to customers’ requests, fill a gap in the market for high-quality furnishings that are classic but not necessarily traditional. The company described the One Kings Lane Collection as “designed by us, for you, and available only here.” Products within the private-label collection include indoor, outdoor, and kids’ furniture; lighting; mirrors; paint; and wallpaper.

In addition, One Kings Lane has collaborated with luxury bedding purveyors Matouk and Matteo on co-branded collections. Further cementing its reputation as a purveyor of quality furnishings unavailable or difficult to find elsewhere, the One Kings Lane website includes “boutiques” selling the most complete online collections from Ralph Lauren Home and designer Mark D. Sikes. And in 2018, One Kings Lane designed a line of fabrics for The Shade Store, a seller of custom window treatments.

To mark the culmination of its evolution to a multichannel provider of products, inspiration, and design services, in autumn 2018 One Kings Lane unveiled a redesigned logo and brand identity. The addition of “New York” to the logo reinforces the city as the brand’s home, with the headquarters located in New York.

Key Strategies

Shops

One Kings Lane expanded beyond digital commerce in 2017, with the opening of its first brick-and-mortar shop. Located in the popular summer-resort town of Southampton, NY, the shop was originally meant to be a summer-only pop-up store. But “after the extremely strong response this summer, the transition to an extended lease was a really natural next step for us.” The Southampton shop was described as “a real-life Pinterest board.”

One Kings Lane’s second store, a New York City flagship, is set to open in fall 2018, at 143 Spring Street, in Manhattan’s landmarked SoHo Cast Iron Historic District. The 3,500-square-foot retail space consists of a Federal-style building dating back to 1818 and believed to be the oldest building in SoHo, along with a sleek glass annex built in 2010.  The mix of the traditional and the modern is in keeping with One Kings Lane’s overall sensibility.

The One Kings Lane retail experience has a three-part foundation:

• A localized, living assortment. With the goal of providing shoppers fresh inspiration on every visit, each shop features a product assortment curated to fit its neighborhood’s aesthetic. As products sell, they will be constantly replaced with new items.
• The makings of a personal mix. Reflecting the One Kings Lane brand ethos that everyone has his or her own style mix, the merchandise assortment encompasses a broad range of styles and price points. In addition to designer and name-brand furnishings, it includes exclusive One Kings Lane Collection products, vintage finds, artisanal items, and one-of-a-kind art.
• Professional design services. With professional interior designers on staff, the shops serve as a resource for customers and the interior design community alike.

Design services

Via One Kings Lane Interior Design (founded in 2015 as The Studio at One Kings Lane), professional designers provide personalized decorating assistance for projects as small as styling a bookcase to those as comprehensive as furnishing an entire home. Customers can consult with designers in person at a One Kings Lane shop or remotely via phone or the web. The design group’s portfolio features a variety of projects, from chic studio apartments in Manhattan to rustic lake houses to ultramodern Palm Spring residences.

As of November 2018, One Kings Lane interior designers are based out of the brand’s shops. Additionally, in 2018 launched its virtual design service platform, giving customers nationwide the ability to have a collaborative design experience from the comfort of their own home.

To the Trade

One Kings Lane launched its To the Trade program in 2016. Design professionals who enroll in the free program have access to a team of “trade concierges” who match product specs, track down items, source vintage pieces, and help with other tasks, freeing up members to focus on design. Members also receive a 10% product discount, among other perks.

Partnerships and Content

Collaborations with designers continue to be imbedded in the company’s DNA. Bradburn Home, Katie Leede, Amanda Nisbet, and Pencil & Paper, among others, have worked with One Kings Lane on exclusive collections. One Kings Lane has also collaborated with designers Ralph Lauren Home and Mark D. Sikes to create exclusive “boutiques” on its website; these sell the most complete online collections of the designers’ products.

Other partnerships are focused on content, to contextualize the merchandise and provide inspiration and advice. The partnerships include book-launch parties, showhouse participation, interviews, and home tours with personalities as diverse as supermodel Carolyn Murphy and menswear designer Michael Bastian. Coverage of such partnerships appears on One Kings Lane’s blog.  

Leadership

Debbie Propst, previously vice president of buying, planning, and retail strategy for One Kings Lane, was named president in July 2016. Propst has been with the company since 2012, holding a series of senior positions throughout her tenure. Previously she held posts at Neiman Marcus and Abercrombie & Fitch.

External links

• Official website