Uniqlo UNIQLO strengthens efforts to improve brand fashion and create clothing empire

Uniqlo UNIQLO, a retail chain of 1734 stores with products in 17 countries, now wants to defeat the Western giants Gap, H&M and Zara, becoming the world's largest fashion manufacturer.

In the highly competitive casual fashion market, the scale of the company is very important, but it can not ensure success: Analysts said that the biggest challenge for Uniqlo is to develop its own brand identity, not just to provide quality and cheap products.

"In order to win consumers and beat competitors, UNIQLO needs to be more personalized," said Stuart Green, head of global brand consulting firm Interbrand Asia Pacific. “For UNIQLO, maintaining product quality is critical, and more importantly, it creates deeper and more emotional connections with consumers to promote the establishment of brand loyalty,” he said.

Interbrand regards Uniqlo as the most valuable retail brand in Japan and is the eighth largest Japanese brand in the world (other Japanese companies include Toyota, Sony and Nintendo etc.). According to Forbes magazine, the company’s founder and CEO Tadashi Yanai is one of the richest in Japan.

Analysts believe that in order to develop to the next stage, Uniqlo needs to strengthen its e-commerce business and focus on other markets outside Asia. It will be critical to win the huge consumer market for suburban shoppers in the United States. Modern consumers like to pick brands on digital platforms and social networks because they increasingly like online shopping. In order to cope with the vast amount of information on the Internet, consumers rely more on brands as a shopping basis, Green said.

In promoting its global expansion strategy, Uniqlo paid great attention to foreign talents and appointed Christophe Lemaire (former creative director of Lacoste and Hermès) as the new UNIQLO Paris R&D center and the new “UniqloU” artistic director.

Uniqlo is still small, with 44 chain stores in the US market and 449 in the Chinese market. The largest market is Japan, with 846 chain stores. Sweden's retail giant H&M has 4000 stores worldwide, while the United States Gap has 3,700 stores and Spain's Inditex operates 7,000 stores in Zara, Bershka and other brands.

Recently, H&M and Inditex have announced healthy financial conditions, but Gap (owning the "Old Navy" and "Banana Republic" brands) is in trouble and is cutting prices to attract consumers and closing dozens of chain stores, including some in Japan. TheStandard&Poor's credit rating agencies have recently lowered Gap’s credit rating. Uniqlo’s profits also fell, and sales of down jackets, HeatTech thermal underwear and other winter clothing declined due to higher winter temperatures.

Yanai’s reorganization plan includes reducing costs, increasing efficiency, repricing, and, most importantly, working with designers to improve the fashion elements of apparel products. Hired star designer Nigo as creative director of UT. Nigo printed T-shirts with images of pop artist Andy Warhol, music creator and singer Pharrell Williams, and traditional Japanese Kabuki theater.

The cooperation with Carine Roitfield, the former editor-in-chief of "Vogue", also brought unusual fashion elements to UNIQLO products.

The company began to focus on the sportswear market, signing with tennis stars Kei Nishiko and Djokovic. Uniqlo executives believe that fashion is global, and people from all over the world, from China to New York, have more or less the same needs - reasonable prices, superior quality, and suitable for their living environment.