Innovation Fellow Ryherd opens fourth online retailer

SOREN L. RYHERD, center, has launched the fourth online retail brand through Retail Project RI, the program he created that is funded by a Rhode Island Foundation Innovation Fellowship. Joining him at the project in this file photo are Lindsay Stickel, left, and Paige Snyder. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
SOREN L. RYHERD, center, has launched the fourth online retail brand through Retail Project RI, the program he created that is funded by a Rhode Island Foundation Innovation Fellowship. Joining him at the project in this file photo are Lindsay Stickel, left, and Paige Snyder. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

PROVIDENCE – The Retail Project RI LLC, a project launched through the Innovation Fellowship program at the Rhode Island Foundation, has launched its fourth retail brand, Fetcher Bay, and its online store FetcherBay.com, to provide dog owners with canine camping gear.

Fetcher Bay will feature outdoor dog clothing, canine camping equipment, outdoor dog beds and travel accessories for people “who want to include their dogs in all their life adventures,” CEO Soren L. Ryherd said.

“We launched [Fetcher Bay] now because it was the right time based on our resource capacity and finances to launch the next brand,” Ryherd told Providence Business News. “We see a tremendous opportunity in dog owners involving their pets in their lives and a tremendous opportunity to be a leading brand in that space.”

The Retail Project RI is a for-profit company using the “clicks to bricks” model of building online stores and then, eventually, converting those stores to bricks and mortar outlets as well. Once there is a solid and consistent base of online sales, Ryherd said, the company will build physical stores in Rhode Island and leverage a national, or global, market.

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Ryherd launched the project by pitching and winning an Innovation Fellowship through the Rhode Island Foundation in 2012. Made possible by philanthropists Letitia and John Carter, the annual fellowships provide winning fellows with $300,000 to support initiatives that can move Rhode Island forward.

Ryherd launched felixchien.com, a high-fashion dog apparel and accessory brand in 2012, followed by urbilis.com, a website specializing in “modern and clever gardening accessories for the urban dweller,” and slumbersome.com, a website offering nonpharmaceutical sleep aids, in 2013.

He declined to disclose sales revenue at the existing online stores but said revenues have doubled year over year.

There is no set timetable for launching the brick and mortar stores but when that does happen prototypes will be launched individually in Rhode Island first, he said. He cited Amazon.com as an example of an online retailer using the clicks to bricks model as they seek to open on-the-ground bookstores.

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