Castlery just spent 7 figs to open its first US store. Here’s the bet they’re making.

The brand expects the store to break even in two years

Singaporean furniture retailer Castlery will open a showroom in New York on May 15, making it one of the very few homegrown companies to establish a permanent retail presence there. This marks the next phase of growth for the company in the United States, following six years of operating online-only in the market.

Co-founder Declan Ee called the brick-and-mortar flagship outlet, a first in the US, as a “natural progression” from its digital retail model.

“The goal was always to create a best-in-class experience for our customers… and the final piece of this experience is completed when we have an offline store,” he said.

The 3,000-square-foot showroom in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood represents a seven-figure investment on a 10-year lease. Ee’s team scouted over 200 sites over two years before choosing this one.

The showroom features 17 fully furnished room settings and a complimentary interior styling service that will advise customers on space planning, furniture selection and interior layout.

Ee told The Business Times that he expects the store to break even within 1.5 years to 2 years, or even within a year if sales are strong.

The opening of the store in the Big Apple marks Castlery’s fourth showroom worldwide, following the opening of its third in Brisbane last Aug. Its Sydney store was set up in 2024 and expanded in 2025, while its 24,000 sq ft flagship store in Liat Towers was established in 2022.

Castlery is in 5 markets, with most sales coming from the US

Castlery was founded in 2013 by Ee and his co-founders, Fred Ji, Zhou Zhiwei and Travers Tan, as a digital retail furniture brand. It currently employs more than 500 staff worldwide, with 200 in its Singapore headquarters.

To date, the brand has sold more than 1 million pieces of furniture and introduced more than 7,000 products.

The label prides itself on affordable, consistent pricing worldwide, ranging from S$399 for a swivel chair to S$2,499 for a leather recliner.

Its first overseas foray came in 2017, when it entered Australia, a market 10 times bigger than Singapore at the time, according to the founders.

The brand entered the US in 2019 during the COVID-19 pandemic as an online brand, starting with two warehouses in New Jersey and Los Angeles, California. Today, Castlery reaches all 50 states from six US warehouses, with the addition of sites in Seattle and Georgia in 2023, and then Texas and Chicago in 2024.

Ee noted that this has reduced delivery times to its US customers, many of whom rent their homes and need furniture delivered with short lead times.

“We were very aggressive in the first two to three years, when we were scaling the business online in the US,” he said.

The US currently makes up Castlery’s largest market by contributing to 65% of the company’s overall sales. Australia comes in second at 17%, followed by Singapore at 15%. The UK and Canada, where Castlery expanded online in 2025, make up the remaining 3%.

The New York store will serve as a testing ground amid evolving market conditions

With this offline expansion, Ee said Castlery will take a “measured” approach given evolving global developments and geopolitical tensions.

The New York showroom will be a testing ground for Castlery before it decides to commit to more showrooms in the country.

Well aware of New York’s competitive retail scene with players such as West Elm and Crate & Barrel that have multiple outlets, Ee acknowledged that this will give consumers plenty of options.

“There’s a lot of room for us to grow in the US, but we’re taking things step by step because one’s perspective changes after opening the first store. You get data, you see how customers react and their basket size—all these things,” he explained.

As with other foreign companies in the US, Castlery was hit hard by US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” baseline tariffs in 2025. This was on top of duties on certain furniture imports, such as upholstered furniture and kitchen cabinets.

As more than half the brand’s products were being manufactured in China and then shipped directly to US customers, Castlery saw its Chinese imports slapped with the highest tariff rates of close to 30%.

Castlery has since diversified its supply chain to reduce its exposure to tariffs. It has moved some of its manufacturing from China to places such as Vietnam, Thailand, and India, leaving only about 20% of its production in China today.

After diversifying its supply chains, Ee said production costs have risen, given higher minimum-order quantities.

This has caused profits to fall by 1% to 3%, which Ee noted is not a negligible amount for a growing furniture brand that typically enjoys margins of 4% to 8%. The tariffs also created consumer uncertainty, leading to a six-month dip in sales, though they have since recovered.

Besides the tariffs, geopolitical tensions have put additional pressure on Castlery’s bottom line. Rising fuel prices amid the ongoing Middle East conflict have squeezed its profit margins.

Taking all these factors into account, Ee expects Castlery’s revenue growth for the current FY2026 ending in Mar to be “flat or in the single-digit” range, down from FY2025’s 10% to 15% year-on-year growth.

A step closer to Castlery’s global ambitions

That said, Ee is still “cautiously optimistic” about Castlery’s growth prospects.

“We control what we can. You don’t know where the wind will blow, so you build the sail to catch it,” he said.

“In our case, it’s about being close to the customer and creating products that they would want to buy, even in difficult economic times.”

The opening of the New York store brings the brand a step closer to its global ambitions.

By 2029, Ee aims to have eight to 12 showrooms in key cities worldwide, including Washington, D.C, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, as well as in Melbourne and Perth in Australia.

Ee is actively scouting for retail locations in London as well, seeing Castlery’s UK online sales double month-on-month until Nov 2025 following a pop-up it held at the London Design Festival in Sep that year.

Ee explained: “Unlike the US, there are not so many big furniture brands in the UK. So we think there’s space for us to enter the market, not to mention that the sales pick-up from customers has been very encouraging.”

Achieving its expansion plans would place Castlery “on track” to evolve from a digital-first furniture retailer into a “proper global retail brand.”

“If we’re nationwide (in a single market), it gives customers a sense of assurance that we’re not just an online challenger brand, but a serious operator.”

Featured Image Credit: Castlery