Borrowing from the success of many chefs, Pursuit goes mobile to connect with young clientel
Now that food trucks are almost everywhere, it’s time for something completely different.
How about a suit truck?
Pursuit — originally a temporary shop in the University District that has turned into a permanent store — is branching out with a “suit store on wheels” in what was once a Cape Cod potato-chip delivery truck.
“It certainly is a fun project,” said Nate DeMars, owner of Pursuit. “We’re hoping the novelty of it can help give us more exposure to potential clientele.”
Like a food truck, Pursuit will take its wares to the public, except in a little more targeted way.
Operators expect to hit events, like the Columbus Young Professionals Club event at the Lifestyle Communities Pavilion on Saturday, as well as making various kinds of appointments. The truck makes its debut tonight at 7:30 at Pursuit’s brick-and-mortar store, 1572 N. High St.
“I don’t think we’ll be at the same place on a weekly basis,” DeMars said. “It will be event based. We’re open to people reaching out if they have a good fit. This is about a guy who wants to bring us to his office or to his fraternity house, or for a guy who wants wedding suits.”
DeMars hatched the idea for Pursuit a few years ago, in an entrepreneurship class at OSU’s Fisher College of Business.
“I had been shopping for a suit and I was amazed that there was a void for a place that seemed to cater to younger guys,” he said.
“Everybody either spent a boatload of money on a suit or went to a warehouse-type place,” DeMars said. “I saw these guys would go to career fairs — thousands of guys — wearing ill-fitting variations of the same look. I thought they could use a little help. I know I could have.”
When the original Pursuit store was launched at the South Campus Gateway 21/2 years ago, the idea of a rolling showroom was very much part of the plan.
But DeMars found that the store had such appeal among the young professional crowd that “it seemed silly to pick up and leave.”
Part of the appeal was the prices. “People assume that since we’re local and small, we must be expensive,” DeMars said. “But people are pleasantly surprised when they visit.”
Suits range from $249 to $399, “what you might find at the mall,” he said.
So the truck idea was put on hold — until last year.
“Nate told us the business was doing well, but he wanted to do something really creative and talked about using a truck,” said architect Eliza Ho.
DeMars had come to the right people. Ho and her husband, Tim Lai, are the architects who have created Dinin’ Hall, Columbus’ first street-food hub that features a rotating roster of food trucks.
“We have partnered with more than 15 food trucks in town, so we know a lot about the anatomy of a truck and have seen so many variations,” Ho said. “When Nate talked about using a truck to sell suits we thought it was a great idea. We haven’t seen anyone do it in the region. I do think it has a lot of potential, using a truck to sell different merchandise.”
Ho and Lai visited the Pursuit store, “to learn more about his aesthetic,” she said. Over the course of several months, they developed design ideas for the exterior and interior of the truck, which DeMars bought from a dealer south of Columbus.
The exterior of the truck features a herringbone pattern intended as a reference to traditional suits, along with the silhouette of a young man.
Inside, “we wanted everything simple,” Ho said. “It goes with the brand. So we went with natural wood, and then modular-type shelving, trying to create a system to make suits stand out.”
The interior isn’t just a jam-packed showroom, however. It’s a functional space that allows customers to shop for, try on and buy suits.
“We were very pleasantly surprised at how roomy it feels, and how much we can pack into it,” DeMars said. “It’s amazing what intelligent design can do. We can get probably 60 percent of the suits we show in the store into the truck.”
Luckily, there was no need to carry a vast inventory in the truck. Because the business focuses on a young clientele, the Pursuit brick-and-mortar store doesn’t carry a huge amount of merchandise either.
“We only sell slim-fit clothes, sizes for a younger demo,” DeMars said. “For instance, we sell charcoal gray 38-regular suit coats. Guys that age have so much less variation in body types than their fathers.”
While DeMars isn’t sure what to expect in sales from the truck, he expects “it to function like a second store. We see a year from now the sales volume will be like the brick-and-mortar.”
“If 10 people in a day buy six suits, that’s a good day, so we’re hoping for that.”
