Blue Nile Opens First Retail Store

Online diamond retailer Blue Nile is putting down some brick-and-mortar roots for the first time by opening a tiny store of its own at a mall outside New York City. The so-called “webroom,” a 325-square-foot space with a half-dozen staffers, grew out of the Seattle retailer’s experiments with temporary counters inside a couple of Nordstrom stores. It also draws on the experience accumulated by placing booths at wedding shows in China — wildly popular fairs that helped drive a 50 percent yearly increase in Blue Nile’s sales there.