Fashion brand and market analysis

Fashion Brand and Market Analysis

The first observation that needs to be made about Urban Outfitters is how well the design of the stores links to the concept and the target market for the company. Indeed, the target market is represented by youth up to 25 or 30 years old, from the cities (hence the name Urban Outfitters, also part of the brand and the excellent customer targeting). The characteristics of this category of potential customers are their informality, their preference for clothes that are out of the usual trend. They are maybe the "hipsters" of the 21st century. As a consequence, they are likely to shop in stores that have a design and an architecture that is just as informal.

This is the case with Urban Outfitters stores. The best way to describe these would be industrial design. There is not much attention to details such as closing the ceiling and, quite often, the pipes are visible. It is not only a method to keep costs low, but it is a design that matches the group of consumers that is most likely to purchase at Urban Outfitters stores.

The way the merchandise is arranged inside the store also reflects this concept. There doesn't seem to be a particular order in the way the products are showcased, emphasizing again the idea of freedom, both in terms of choice (of clothes in this case) and in terms of the individuals' freedom in life.

Another element that is important is the large diversity of the portfolio of products that Urban Outfitters is boasting. Indeed, other than clothes, for both men and women, there is a large segment of beauty products, but also of things for the apartment, ranging from furniture to lighting. The concept of the store is thus one that covers a wider area of potential interests. However, one should also note that the Urban Outfitters stores are not necessarily large, as compared to Macy's, for example, offering a similarly large portfolio of products. The explanation could be that the company wanted to give an intimate feel to the relationship with its clients, to emphasize that the connection between the company and, thus, the store and the client is much more complex than a usual store to customer relationship.

Part II

The decision will be to outsource the production of basic jeans to Indonesia. First of all, there need to be a couple of arguments as to why the choice is for basic jeans. There are several. One is that basic jeans do not require a very complex technology or norms of production. This means that the quality of the basic jeans, given their lower complexity, will be similar whether the jeans are produced in Indonesia or in the United States. The company can subsequently differentiate through other means, such as design or marketing.