Furniture brand Cozey is opening its first showroom in Toronto on March 14.
The 3,600-square-foot showroom is located at 1026 Queen Street West at Ossington Avenue.
Founder Frédéric Aubé said the flagship store marks a significant milestone in Cozey’s journey.
“Our expansion into physical retail embodies our commitment to bringing simplicity, trust, and personalization closer to our customers. This store is a clear signal of our promise to our customers: to offer world-class service and innovative products that make a house feel like home,” he said.
The idea for Cozey came to Aubé when he was a student at McGill University in Montreal studying finance and economics. The idea began in 2019 and the brand was launched initially online in June 2020.
The concept was purely digital until last year when it opened a pop-up location at Stackt Market in Toronto in May 2023.
“That ended at the end of September and it was a practice for our first permanent store,” said Aubé.
“So we really used it as a testing ground for the store. Really wanted to see what customers were looking for, what type of questions they had, so that the last notifications of our store design could match what our customers were looking for.
“We learned a lot. And in terms of results and sales, in terms of conversions, in terms of financial objectives we had set ourselves, we exceeded that by a lot.”
The pop-up was 240 square feet. At first it only had one sofa but the retailer found out that customers wanted to try all of the sofas. So by the end of the pop-up it had all of its models, some tables, smaller size sofas.
“That’s one of the learnings we had. We need to have lots of variety in the store and not just one model,” said Aubé.
The new store is a streetfront location with neighbours being a Starbucks, another coffee shop, and an interior living room accessories company.
“Ossington is a walking street with tons of cool and fun shops and restaurants and bars. It’s really a cool, hip neighbourhood you can wander around and that’s what we want it to be,” he said. “We didn’t want to be in a mall. We wanted to be in a place where people could walk, explore other shops, be outside, go to a bar, go to a restaurant, shop their favourite brands.
“That really resonated with us and our first flagship.
“The Cozey store isn’t just a showroom – it’s an interactive space that brings our online community to life. Here, you can touch, feel, and see how our designs transform spaces.”
Cozey is represented by Oberfeld Snowcap for its real estate needs.
At the back of the showroom is the Design Centre where visitors can see and touch Cozey’s rugs, accessories and fabric swatches as well as get help from Cozey professionals.
The showroom was “designed to be fully accessible and pet-friendly, the store reflects Cozey’s commitment to inclusivity and its core values of putting People First.”
The retailer has also launched its first pop-up in Montreal. The pop-up is at Quartier Dix30 in Brossard and it’s beside Lululemon and close to the Apple store.
Aubé said initially the new Toronto showroom was in a bigger space than what the company wanted.
“The idea for Cozey at first was just to create one simple sofa, elegant, easy to move, in boxes that could be assembled tool free, shipped to your door in a few days at a really attractive price point,” said Aubé in a previous interview with Retail Insider.
“It was a test to see if other people had the same problem as me of moving sofas around in a move or assembling sofas that take four tools and 12 bolts. And if so, can I sell those sofas on the internet.
“It was one sofa, four colours, really simple. And that’s how it started.
“It was the perfect timing to launch a sofa brand on the internet. We were in the midst of the pandemic where all the stores were closed. Everybody was looking for furniture and we had furniture in stock because of our model we hold the stock in and ship out directly to the customers’ homes. The business model was perfect because we had stocked and because we were able to serve customers. So the reception was above and beyond all of my expectations and it’s been like that since the beginning.”
Aubé said it’s still to be determined if more locations are in the plans for the retailer.
“One store to start. We’ll see what happens. We really want to learn from it. We’ve never done retail. I think we’re pretty good at ecom but it was a long process for this first store. Construction almost for a year. Lots of permit approvals. Lots of design approvals. So we’re still recovering from that first experience and let’s see what the results are before starting to think what’s the second store, what’s the third store,” he said.
“The market in general I think has had a very rough time down from the pandemic highs. We’ve been lucky as a young growing company. We’ve had good times versus what the market has been seeing. Everybody in the pandemic was really comfortable buying online and I think that accelerated a lot of things but still there’s a good proportion of people that still want to touch, feel, sit on their sofas before buying it. That’s what we discovered. Every day dozens and dozens of people asking where they can try our sofas. Having this first location will give us a better understanding of what customers really want and to experience the brand as well.”
