When customers step into Abbode’s store in New York City’s Nolita, its founder Abigail Price wants one thing to be clear: this isn’t a typical embroidery shop. Rather than stitching logos on school uniforms and corporate swag that goes straight into donation bins, her team puts custom pet portraits and swanky monograms on chic waffle robes, leather travel pouches, and other products that are hot among young women on the internet. What happens in the shop, however, is only about 20 percent of Abbode’s entire business, which is on track to make $4 million this year.
Originally founded in early 2020 as a dry floral arrangement business—that, a year later, evolved into a home decor store—Abbode began offering embroidery as a complimentary service with purchase to its shoppers in September 2022, not long after after Price dusted off the embroidery machine she had bought on a whim. “We had a little sign that said Ask us about our embroidery that was literally handwritten on a note card and, like, a color menu. And people were not asking about it,” she recalls, laughing. “I would say we completed maybe 10 items a week, if that.”
Selling an experience
That number quickly scaled to around 50 to 75 items a week once Price reframed the idea as a pop-up experience in an attempt to boost the store’s foot traffic and sales. Instead of waiting for visitors to inquire about embroidery, she created a display of tote bags, coasters, and other blank merchandise sourced from Etsy and Amazon with sample designs already stitched on them. Making the service more visible and approachable to customers both in the store and on social media made them instantly more eager to buy into it, says Price.
To build up the momentum, the founder invited fellow small businesses, such as local jewelry brands Lottie and Notte, to host pop-ups in the store and offered their customers complimentary embroidery with purchase; those businesses covered the price of the embroidery as well as shared a percentage of their sales with Abbode. At the same time, marketing teams at Steve Madden and LoveShackFancy tapped Abbode as a live embroidery vendor for their activations.
Price’s team creates a custom design menu to match the theme of each event – cowboy boots and taxi cabs for Steve Madden, tennis rockets and oysters to match Lottie’s preppy aesthetics. Not only does this fast-track customer decisions, they’ve also become a signature element of the Abbode experience.
Investing in in-house offerings
In November 2023, embroidery became the brand’s sole focus—at that point, it was already responsible for pretty much all business as its home decor side declined, Price explains. Since product curation had been a key driver of embroidery sales, the founder invested into developing an in-house product line, tailored specifically to Abbode’s customer—“the cool city trendsetter,” as she puts it.
The lineup included $28 cocktail napkins and $78 waffle pouches, the latter of which is a best-seller, responsible for nearly half of Abbode’s business. Even small details, like custom labels made a huge difference—they elevate the customer experience and create further brand differentiation, says Price.
Today, Abbode carries 13 products that shoppers can customize with embroidery from five different design categories both in-store and online. Those looking to get their own pieces embroidered or create their own designs are welcome to pop into the store in Nolita where a more custom service will run them anywhere from $45 to $150 on average.
This fall, the brand also launched a collection of embroidered products on Shopbop, although none of those are customizable. In November, it will launch a similar selection on Revolve. Overall, customer orders make up roughly 60 percent of Abbode’s revenue which has more than doubled in the past year, according to Price.
Driving partnerships
The remaining 40 percent is split evenly between bulk embroidery orders and events, contracted by an impressive lineup of brands–including Skims, Lemme, Sephora, Tory Burch, and J.Crew–that pay Abbode a fee inclusive of products, hosting, and design.
For Price, one of the most memorable partnerships to date has been co-hosting a grand Abbode store takeover with L.L.Bean last September. “We sold almost $100,000 worth of product in two days and retained many new customers and followers,” says the founder. But more importantly, getting a legacy brand that is already widely known for its monogramming to tap her team as a partner and ask for an Abbode take on its iconic embroidery validated the team’s status not only as a top vendor but also a cultural tastemaker.
That is exactly the space she had hoped to carve out for herself and her growing team of 25 people. “When you come to our store, we are showing you what’s cool,” says Price. “We are helping [customers] take emotion, and feelings, and things they love, and turn them into a product that they can gift…or just be unique and personal to them.” Embroidery just happens to be the medium.
Viktoriia Vasileva
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