Is New York Ready to Say: I Love Lucy.com?

It seems that just a few years ago, every retailer in the country was fighting to bring their products online.

Lucy.com, an online and catalog retailer of women’s workout wear, is reversing that trend, bringing their online offerings to the brick and mortar world, with the opening of a lucy.com retail store in New York.

The move marks the opening of the Portland, Oregon-based Company’s third retail distribution channel: lucy.com launched a website in November 1999, a catalog in September 2000, and now will establish a brick-and-mortar presence in conjunction with Crunch a New York City developer of athletic clubs and lifestyle products.

The company hopes to have the store set up by January of 2001.

“We want women to be able to find great workout wear wherever they prefer to shop — in a store, by a catalog, or on the web,” said Sue Levin, CEO and co-founder of lucy.com. “This Crunch store will be our beachhead into brick-and-mortar retailing. Where better to launch than at Crunch in New York City?”

The Portland-based e-tailer will apply some of what it learned on the Web in the store. Shoppers will have the opportunity to browse the lucy.com website through a kiosk in the store and copies of the latest lucy.com catalog will be on hand.

In addition, New York City shoppers will be able to exchange items purchased from the website and the catalog, thereby avoiding one of the biggest hassles of online shopping.