The Amazon Trade-Off: Can Boutique Retailers Survive Online?

At a time when algorithms know your shopping habits better than you do, brick-and-mortar retail is far from dead.

From Barnes & Noble’s surprising resurgence to Warby Parker’s store boom — even as Amazon retreats from its own storefront experiments — successful brands are discovering that physical presence remains vital.

This paradox sets the stage for a critical strategic question: how do companies navigate the tradeoffs of using simultaneously digital and physical channels of distribution without losing their identity?

From Clicks to Aisles: Brands Bet on Stores

In 2025, it might seem the consumer experience should be fully digital. Yet consumer data points to a careful balance of brick-and-mortar expansion alongside online accessibility. There is still something powerful about walking into a store, feeling the products, and experiencing the brand firsthand.

Take U.S. bookseller Barnes & Noble, which has more than 600 stores, and plans for more. Before activist hedge fund Elliott Management bought the bookseller in 2019, Barnes & Noble had closed more than 150 stores. In April, the company announced plans to open more than 60 new locations in 2025, following 57 new stores in 2024.

Pure direct-to-consumer strategies have often struggled to scale profitably, with digital-native brands such as Warby Parker building out physical footprints to complement their e-commerce operations, and even shuttering programs such as at home try-ons. Warby Parker’s expansion began in 2022, when it opened 40 new stores, and the company has continued to invest in retail locations as critical to its growth.

Despite its dominance online, Amazon has struggled with the brick-and-mortar transition. The largest e-commerce retailer in the U.S. shuttered its experimental bookstores and scaled back its ambitious AmazonGo convenience and grocery concepts. However, the acquisition of Whole Foods has provided growth and scale, targeting 2,300 cities by end of 2025. The tech giant’s mixed results raise a compelling question: How do some brands succeed at omnichannel retailing while others falter?

The Omnichannel Dilemma: Scale vs. Control

At its core, omnichannel strategy asks how a brand can seamlessly integrate multiple distribution channels including online, physical retail, and wholesale, while maintaining a consistent brand identity and customer experience.

Raj Venkatesan, professor of business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, says omnichannel strategy involves tradeoffs between ease of access for consumers and the company’s control of the way the brand is portrayed on the platform.

“The allure of platforms like Amazon is the reach, accessibility and logistics they offer,” he explains. “However, brands can sacrifice pricing control, have slimer margins, build direct comparisons to competition, and hand over their customer data in exchange for convenience and scale.”

Caspari’s Case: Boutique Prestige Meets Amazon Reach

Our new case explores this tension through Caspari, a brand headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1945 as a European greeting card company, Caspari has grown into a brand renowned for its collaborations with artists, designers, and museums. Its products, including greeting cards, stationery and luxury tableware, are mainly sold through wholesale channels to high-end retailers, specialty boutiques and upscale grocery stores.

But like many premium consumer goods companies, Caspari faces a shifting retail landscape. While its sales are primarily driven by business-to-business (B2B) customers, the company’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels — including its Shopify-powered website, and Amazon storefront — are growing in importance.

What Luxury Brands Can Teach Us About Brand Integrity

The challenge mirrors decisions by companies like Burberry Group, which partnered with Amazon to control distribution, and Nike, which exited the platform to preserve brand integrity.

Some luxury brands decided, nonetheless, to sell select products on Amazon, including fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, which debuted on the site in 2020. Its Winter 2024 collection is featured in Amazon’s high-end category, Luxury Stores. This category only features jewelry, clothing, fragrance and skin-care products.

“In certain product categories, brands are finding it increasingly necessary to maintain both digital and physical retail presence” says Sam Levy, an assistant professor at UVA Darden.  

Some companies have their own storefront on Amazon, including L’Occitane International and Caspari. While established niche businesses benefit from Amazon’s platform, our research shows that start-ups also found it useful for bringing their products to markets and promoting accessibility.

At the same time, companies are trying to figure out how to leverage their unique sites so that they can maximize consumer loyalty and customer preferences.

Saks Global recently announced a new personalization strategy, stemming from its newly formed parent company, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marus and Bergdorf Goodman. Even a company of this size and scale continues to grapple with how to leverage its consumer data — rolling out personalized homepages in combination with data science models to generate predictions for users’ actions.  

Early results are promising, yet the company is still betting on brick and mortar playing a role in ongoing customer loyalty.

Four Questions Every Leader Should Ask

While each company’s journey is unique, the broader lessons for omnichannel strategy can be framed through four key questions:

1. Can your company maintain brand integrity no matter the platform? Online marketplaces such as Amazon can drive growth, but they can also dilute brand identity if not managed carefully. Successful brands know when to say no and analyze the tradeoffs whether margin, cannibalization, or scale.
2. What is your company/product’s unique differentiator? For premium and heritage brands, in-store experiences can create emotional connections that e-commerce struggles to replicate. What stories or unique history are central to your company?
3. How can your leadership prioritize hybrid strategies? The most resilient brands are those that treat digital and physical as complementary rather than competing. A strong DTC platform combined with selective retail presence can offer a comprehensive omnichannel strategy.
4. How is the experience and assortment differentiated across the channels?
   Online channels provide an “endless aisle,” where algorithms shape decision-making by influencing which products customers see first. In contrast, physical stores offer a curated assortment and the ability to experience products directly through touch, trial, or the customer’s side by side comparison.

From our research, one theme is clear: the path from boutique to online is rarely linear. Rather, success belongs to companies that truly understand their customers and prioritize the channels that best tell their story.  

Have a case idea or lead to share with Darden? Submit your idea here.

This article is based on the new case “The Chronicles of Caspari: Should Caspari Expand Its Online Marketplace” (Darden Business Publishing), written by Rajkumar Venkatesan, Samuel Levy, Katherine Nunner (’25), Saru Guneja (’25), and Stephen E. Maiden.