Lulus Adds Macy's and Bloomingdale's as Wholesale Growth Reshapes Strategy

Lulus is taking its 30-year-old dress brand into 30 Macy's stores and 16 Bloomingdale's locations this fall, part of a wholesale push that grew 143% between 2024 and 2025 and is projected to more than double again in 2026.

The digitally born retailer will stock everyday and special occasion dresses at Macy's, both in stores and online. At Bloomingdale's, the rollout will start with homecoming before expanding into resort and other occasion categories.

Why is Lulus betting on wholesale?

CEO Crystal Landsem framed the move as a response to how customers now shop, not a pivot away from the brand's direct-to-consumer foundation.

"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.

The push follows Lulus's nationwide rollout in Nordstrom stores earlier this year. About 55% of Nordstrom sales now come from physical locations, according to company figures cited by the brand.

What is the customer telling Lulus?

Landsem pointed to occasionwear, where shoppers want to feel fabrics and try on dresses before committing. The same behavior is surfacing across the brand's existing wholesale business.

The company expects wholesale to more than double again in 2026 after a 143% gain between 2024 and 2025, per a February forecast.

Lulus is tailoring assortment by retailer rather than running a uniform line across its wholesale fleet:

• Macy's: broader, younger shoppers; homecoming, prom, and everyday dresses
• Bloomingdale's: fashion-oriented and curated, starting with homecoming
• Nordstrom, Dillard's, Amazon: established wholesale partners

How important is Gen Z to this strategy?

Lulus's core customer has been essentially millennial for a decade, but Gen Z is now a growing share of new shoppers, Landsem said. Stores still play a discovery role for that group.

A McKinsey report from earlier this year found that 28% of Gen Z consumers discovered new brands in physical stores, compared with 23% who cited social media.

Is wholesale a sales driver or a brand-building play?

For Landsem, it is both. She called wholesale a "profitable brand marketing channel" that introduces shoppers to Lulus before funneling them back to the company's website.

Customer surveys now include shoppers who say they first encountered Lulus through Dillard's, Amazon, or Bloomingdale's before buying direct, she noted.

"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," Landsem said.

DTC remains Lulus's largest sales channel, and first-party data continues to drive product and assortment decisions. But wholesale is gaining ground fast, and the company sees substantial room to keep expanding store presence.

"Our customer is our muse and our merchant," Landsem said, "and we go where she tells us to go."

The Macy's and Bloomingdale's rollouts will test whether Lulus can keep scaling physical-store distribution without diluting the first-party data advantage that built the brand.