THE Bonobos shop on lower Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan, sits in a row of familiar fashion brands, including J.Crew, Zara and Gap. As at those stores, shoppers at Bonobos can survey racks of clothes, try on this shirt and those trousers, then decide which items to purchase. Unlike in those stores, shoppers at Bonobos may not buy any clothes to take home. When Bonobos first tried this idea, in 2011, it seemed like a lark. The company now has 20 such shops, from Texas to California, and plans to open at least seven more this year.

Bricks-and-mortar stores are in the throes of an identity crisis. The growing threat from online shopping has spurred some physical retailers to do more than just sell goods. Lululemon lures shoppers with both yoga clothes and yoga classes; Louis Vuitton displays fine art beside its frocks. Among the most interesting models to emerge, however, are chains such as Bonobos, whose outlets have no stock to sell.

The idea is to divorce the purchase of a product from its distribution. Until recently, this business model was largely restricted to sellers of big, non-portable things like furniture: people like to examine sofas before they buy them, but they do not fit neatly into shopping bags. Now, clothing retailers are seeing the downsides of conventional shops, too.

If a retailer stores and sells goods in the same place, it must lease space, often in an expensive central location, for the store room as well as the shop floor. Staff may be needed to unpack deliveries overnight, which raises costs further. Employees spend much of the day restocking shelves, which means less attention paid to customers. Companies can never predict perfectly which items will sell in which shops. Inevitably some clothes linger unsold for too long, and must be marked down, which squeezes margins.

Online-only shops have less of a problem with this sort of thing, but there are still many consumers who like to check the fit and the feel of a garment before buying. So Paul Evans and Jack Erwin, two young shoe companies, have showrooms in New York where shoppers can inspect loafers and brogues, then order them online. Warby Parker does the same for glasses.

The most prominent American example is Bonobos, which began as an online-only men’s retailer before realising customers wanted shops, too. Its outlets house many styles and many sizes, but not every style in every size. Salesmen have the sole job of helping each shopper find clothes he likes, identify the proper fit and order the clothes online. “We do a better job of selling clothes because we don’t stock the clothes,” boasts Andy Dunn, the firm’s founder. Bonobos need not guess which trousers will sell at which store. All its stock is at one central warehouse.

In Asia, Zalora offers a variation on this theme. The four-year-old online retailer displays its clothes in pop-up showrooms in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and the Philippines. Such temporary installations, explains Tito Costa, Zalora’s marketing chief, are “a way to build confidence either in a new way of shopping or in a young brand.” Shoppers can try on Zalora’s clothes, chat with its stylists and order items online, either from computer stations or by scanning a QR code with their phones, using Zalora’s app.

It is no coincidence that the companies that are testing out such showrooms began online. Big, established retailers are unlikely to convert stores to showrooms, at least in the foreseeable future. They have trained millions of customers to expect immediate gratification—buy a Zara dress in the afternoon, for example, and go dancing in it that same evening. Delivering to individuals rather than shipping in bulk to stores would also require established retailers to upend their distribution networks, says Neil Saunders of Conlumino, a consulting firm. But for many younger retailers, selling online and in showrooms may be the future, not least because showrooms are cheaper to run than conventional shops. That means they can open more of them, more quickly.