Diff Eyewear built its business selling sunglasses and prescription frames online and through other retailers. Its first store of its own is on King Street.
Diff opened the shop at 423 King St. in early October, The Post and Courier reported, and held a grand opening Oct. 10. The roughly 1,800-square-foot space offers eye exams on site and includes a sculptural tree by artist Daniel Popper, the newspaper reported. Cultural anthropologist Phil Otto designed the store.
“Physical retail stores are a natural next chapter for Diff,” CEO Bob Ross said in a written statement.
The Los Angeles-based company, founded in 2014, plans at least 30 more standalone stores over the next three years, with the second due in the Tampa Bay area of Florida next spring, The Post and Courier reported. Ross told Vision Monday the company is starting in the Southeast, probably with Atlanta, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham, both coasts of Florida and Alabama among its first half-dozen or so stores, before moving into Texas and Southern California.
Ross told the trade publication WWD that Charleston is where the company’s customers are, The Post and Courier reported. He also pointed to downtown’s walkability, its visitor traffic and a shopping scene that includes rival Warby Parker a few steps away at 415 King St., the newspaper reported. Diff says its target shopper is a woman between 25 and 50 with a middle to upper income.
The exam room matters to the math. Ross told Vision Monday he expects prescription eyewear to make up 40% or more of store sales, compared with about 20% online.
Diff also sells through department stores including Nordstrom and Dillard’s, and it said in October that more than 1,200 Target stores will carry two exclusive collections, starting in December. Ross expects revenue to top $100 million in 2026, he told WWD, according to The Post and Courier.
The store is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, according to the company.
