Uniqlo Going High-Street
Did you ever wonder why there is a Uniqlo store in Ginza? The answer is in order to fund their ever growing thirst for global apparel domination. In order to fund their costly overseas expansion Fast Retailing is opening Uniqlo stores in prime, high-street locations. Besides the Ginza store, Uniqlo will open up a small, 660sqm store in Tokyo Midtown in early September, where their new office is located. This will be the first time Uniqlo is going to be competing with high-end boutiques in the same shopping complex. Other sites include a 1,500sqm store in front of Osaka’ Uehommachi Station slated to open by the end of August. A 3,00sqm Uniqlo store will also open this October in Osaka’s Shinsaibashi, becoming one of the largest Uniqlo stores in Japan. Also in early September Uniqlo will open a 1,650sqm store in Seibu Department Store in Takatsuki, Osaka. Other prime areas of interest for Uniqlo are Kichijoji Atre in Tokyo’s Musashino and Kohrinbo 109 in Kanazawa.
Uniqlo’s Japan business accounts for 75% of its global business and with plans to increase their overseas sales to exceed their domestic sales they will not only need to open more domestic stores to fund their overseas operations but also overseas store to drive their overseas sales.
With Uniqlo opening new stores in prime, high-street locations, what’s next; Rodeo Drive, Omotesando Dori? And then, when are too many Uniqlo stores too many? After all once you exceed 800 stores domestically can every store really be profitable?
