La Maison Simons has gone 178 years without buying another company. But that changed this week.

The retailer has acquired men’s grooming brand and ecommerce site Rituels. The acquisition, the company’s first, also marks the arrival of men’s grooming and shaving products on its store shelves.

“Our companies target similar market segments from two different but perfectly complementary angles,” Simons CEO Peter Simons said in a release. “It is therefore a natural association and one I’m really pleased to be entering into today.”

Launched in 2011, Rituels is an upscale brand that sells razors, oils, grooming accessories and shaving creams – from its own Rituels-branded products to those from over 40 other brands – through its ecommerce platform. While it opened its first physical boutique store in Quebec City three years ago, the vast majority of its customers still reach it through its online platform. Michael Carpentier, president of Rituels, wrote in a blog post about the transaction that the company has an annual growth of nearly 40% in online sales.

Both Rituels’ website and boutique store will continue to operate as normal following the acquisition. Rituels products will be made available on Simons’ online shopping site in the near future, and be gradually phased into its 15 physical locations across Canada over the coming months.

In his blog post, Carpentier said the gradual transition into Simons’ stores was because “managing 15 huge and beautiful stores across Canada is a colossal challenge” and that they want to “do it right.” On top of Simons’ reputation for customer service, attention to detail and the ability to reach a customer base that was previously inaccessible to the online company, he added that support on the logistics side of things was a big motivator for selling the company.”

“We will soon have help with logistics, which is a big challenge for small and medium-sized businesses that are starting to have some success online,” he wrote. “Simons has the ability to receive tons of products and ship orders at a speed and with a precision we could only dream of so far.”