Boll & Branch. Chestnut Hill, MA store interior
Courtesy of Boll & Branch. Photo credit: Heidi Kirn Photography
Boll & Branch, the luxury home textiles company founded in 2014 to sell organic, Fair-Trade certified cotton sheets online, isn’t sleeping on its opportunities. It just opened stores in Skokie, IL, outside Chicago, and another in Chestnut Hill, MA, in Boston, with three more coming this summer in Troy, MI; Ardmore, PA; and Brookfield, WI. By year-end, its fleet will extend to 20 stores in prime shopping locations coast-to-coast, plus being carried by luxury retail partners Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom.
As so many brands that got their start in e-commerce have discovered, there’s a ceiling to how far you can scale online—and the cost of acquiring new customers has soared since the early days. And in some categories, like the high-touch business of sheets, where competition is fierce and cotton-percale sheet sets start around $40 at mass retailers, convincing shoppers to spend five, six, even ten times more for luxury bed linens is the biggest challenge.
Opening stores became the only way for Boll & Branch to reach its full potential. Backed by a $100 million investment by L Catterton in 2019, the company began expanding from its first store in New Jersey’s Short Hills Mall, just around the corner from the company’s Summit, NJ headquarters. L Catterton has proven a perfect partner. LVMH and the Groupe Arnault own 40% of the firm, so it provides more than just financial capital—it brings luxury expertise as well.
“We’ve learned a lot from businesses in their portfolio,” company founder and CEO Scott Tannen said. And the alignment goes deeper. L Catterton’s investment philosophy is to translate “sustainability priorities into commercial outcomes for our portfolio.”
Boll & Branch was a perfect fit. It was the first bedding company to be Fair Trade Certified and the first to build a 100% organic, ethically-sourced cotton supply chain. Even the company name comes from cotton—the fiber grows in a “boll” on the plant’s supportive “branch.”
Luxury Linens Is A High-Touch, Service Business
The stores have proven a wise investment, helping the company grow from over $200 million in 2023 when Tannen and I last spoke to $250 million in 2025—a 25% increase.
Even more impactful, customers who shop in stores spend between four and five times more than online customers. “Shopping for bedding is still largely something that happens offline,” he shared.
To help in-store customers pick the best fabric—from organic cotton sateen and percale weaves to ultra-luxurious Supima cotton, linen and seasonal cashmere-blend sheets—stores feature a “Fabric Bar.” Fabric selections hang from the ceiling to the floor after being washed 20 times, to prove another of the company’s credibility claims: that Boll & Branch sheets get softer every time they are washed.
“The ‘Fabric Bar’ is the first place everybody goes when they walk in the store,” he said. “We display a 15-foot piece of all our fabrics that they can pull out and wrap themselves it. It makes for a really memorable experience.”
“Fabric Bar” as the Boll & Branch Chestnut Hill, MA store
Courtesy of Boll & Branch. Photo credit: Heidi Kirn Photography
The stores also showcase the full range of Boll & Branch products, beyond the usual suspects of sheets, blankets, duvets and pillows for the bed. Its expansion into the bathroom—towels and washcloths made with Turkish organic cotton, bath mats, shower curtains, robes and pajamas—has proven a big success. “It’s on a path to rival our bedding business,” Tannen said, noting that the bath business has more than doubled in just the last few months.
In keeping with the standard of service expected in luxury retail, each store functions as a design service hub offering free in-store, at-home and virtual design consultations by trained professionals. “We don’t just hire sales representatives. All of our team are trained in home and interior design,” he said.
This commitment to exemplary customer service ultimately limits how fast the company can expand. “We’re not one of those brands that’s going to open 40 stores in the next year. There’s no way you can do that in a quality way,” he explained. “The key in the store is the really talented people we hire—and we’ve never had to close a store.”
Beyond design services, any customer buying even a single set of sheets can get complimentary “Room Service,” where a staff member hand-delivers the sheets, steams them, makes the bed and offers styling advice. Tannen said a “significant percentage” of customers take advantage of these complimentary services.
Better Sheets, Better Sleep
Boll & Branch’s prospects look bright as it rides the broader wellness wave. The U.S. market totaled $480 billion in 2024 and is growing about 10% per year, according to McKinsey. And within the wellness sphere, sleep is the second-highest health and wellness priority for consumers, across a range including better health, fitness, mindfulness, nutrition and appearance. Notably, sleep is the area where people report having the highest level of unmet needs.
Globally, the sleep-product economy totals about $175 billion. While sleep tech and high-tech mattresses grab the headlines, one of the most fundamental elements of the sleep experience—the sheets you lie on every night—is easily overlooked.
As Tannen said: “People spend the most time at home in their bed. Sheets are something we use every day. We should love them.”
And love them they do. Twenty percent of Boll & Branch customers have purchased at least five times and over half are repeat buyers. “That’s a lot of retention,” he concluded.
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