Online furniture retailer Brosa has quietly opened a second showroom, expanding its bricks-and-mortar footprint into Sydney.

The studio in Alexandria has been open to wait list customers since February and the general public since March.

“The reception has been really great. Sydney is one of our top markets and customers have been asking us to open there since we first started the business,” Brosa founder and CEO Ivan Lim told Inside Retail.

“We knew we were onto something good when customers started turning up at the studio before we even opened – the fit out was still being done,” he said.

“It’s been great having a physical presence in Sydney and I think it’s gone a long way to helping customers engage with the Brosa experience and brand on a deeper level.”

The move comes more than a year after the online retailer opened its first bricks-and-mortar showroom, Brosa Studio, in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood.

Both showrooms are primarily accessible by-appointment-only, since Brosa assigns an interior designer to personally guide each customer through the studio and tailors the items on display to each customer’s needs.

However, customers can visit the studios without an appointment on certain ‘open days’ each month, and Brosa is currently trialing new formats that would allow customers to walk in, while still being guided by a personal interior designer.

“Our mission is to help customers create a beautiful home painlessly and having that curated one-on-one experience is still really important,” Lim said.

Brosa founder and CEO Ivan Lim (centre).

This curated experience is a key differentiator for Brosa, which has managed to grab a slice of the four per cent of Australian furniture sales that occur online by maintaining total control over the customer experience through its in-house customer service and delivery.

In doing so, Brosa has been able to bridge the gap between the existing players in Australia’s $7 billion furniture market and scoop up consumers who have outgrown Ikea, but dislike the idea of shopping at big box stores and yet are not prepared to drop thousands on designer pieces.

At the same time, Lim founded Brosa with a ‘digital-first’ mentality and has continued to invest in the company’s purpose-built technology platform, which enables it to remove many of the traditional supply chain pain points.

In October last year, Brosa raised a further $5 million from investors to fund its bricks-and-mortar expansion and hire senior talent with solid backgrounds in software engineering, technology and furniture.

Lim said Brosa is now looking to expand the range and enhance the customer experience. Meanwhile, further showrooms are a distinct possibility.

“It’s always on the horizon and we’ve got a few locations on our radar where customer demand is strong. We’ll look to roll out at the appropriate time,” he said.

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