Chris Burch goes retail

It may be four years since Chris Burch divorced fashion darling Tory, but the venture capitalist is still dipping his velvet-slipper-clad feet into the retail realm.Find Your Dream Bag Online for a Great Price! Earlier this year, he co-founded poppin.com, an office-supplies site. And just in time for the holidays, Mr. Burch, who remains on the board of Tory Burch, last month opened women's retail boutique C. Wonder at 72 Spring St. The entrepreneur is planning to grow the eclectic store into a chain of 300.

It's all about a quirky fun-ness. We wanted people to have more fun in a store environment, and checkout to be easier. In our store, you have everything from teapot lamps to flying pigs to incredibly cool shoes, handbags and gifts.Our job is to service the customer, that's why we have a return policy of forever. We are totally obsessed at every level—we have no rules. Any one of our sales associates can do whatever the customer wants. We believe that today, in order to be competitive with the Internet, we need to overexecute at that level.

It's three times what we expected. Customers really are having fun in the store. In our dressing rooms, you can dim the lights and put on your own music. We also have technology where anyone can checkout anywhere in the store. We pass out free lemonade and are always giving out free gifts.Our driving shoe is really hot. So are nylon tote bags with your initials on them. We're big into personalization, and we develop all-new products every season.We opened two stores before Thanksgiving. Next year, we'll open between 20 and 50 stores globally—including three more stores in New York City—but once we hit 300 stores, we'll stop. We don't want too much of any one thing, we don't want to oversupply.