The company that is to have a new business venture is the Urban Outfitters which is headquartered in Pennsylvania, United States. It is a clothing and lifestyle retail brand. The stores have been active ever since the 1970s. The target market for the brand is young adults of the ages of 18 till 30. They have unique western style clothing which is up-beat, casual, and trendy relating to what young adults are looking to wear presently. The company attracts customers by catchy stores, and online platforms such as apps ands websites. They also, of course, have social media platforms and a lot of following there as well. The overall theme of the clothes allows the customers to be expressive and bold with their sense of style while also looking sophisticated and classy (Annual report, 2019).
Their demographics include both males and females and they are not just limited to clothes. The brand also has accessories, footwear, beauty products and other lifestyle, or home-related products that are aesthetically pleasing in their designs and hence quite appealing to the audiences as well. Stores of Urban Outfitters are huge in terms of the physical space they offer, the average is approximated to be 9000 square feet. Location of the stores are also at high-end areas that are commercial, popular, and metropolitan. Majority of the stores are located in the United States, then Europe and then Canada. The total number has reached to a whooping 245 in these three regions alone. The brand does hope to expand further around the globe by entering new markets and introducing new products that would increase our target market in other countries as well (Annual report, 2019).
It was realised that Urban Outfitters do not have a lot of presence in Asia. A country in particular that we thing would prove to be a good business venture for the company is Pakistan. There are several reasons behind that choice. First of all, the major chunk of the Pakistani population is the youth comprising of both males and females. And the country is also going through rapid changes with respect to culture and conservatism. More people than ever are now looking for “western style” clothes in Pakistan and there is still a lack of brands that provide good quality, unique, trendy, and affordable western clothing. The Pakistani population, specifically the ones living in the major cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Faisalabad, Hyderabad et cetera, are becoming more spent thrift towards luxury items such as branded clothes which a decade back, perhaps, was not a common phenomenon. Now a days, the brand culture is quite dominant in these cities. The price ranges of Urban Outfitters are pretty reasonable to what an average middle-class to upper-class would spend on casual branded clothing. So, there is a huge untapped market for Urban Outfitters in Pakistan (Zafar, n.d).
The millennials are taking over the world in the present times. The era is of social media and trends pick up and get viral quickly. This is a cheap and yet effective marketing method that Urban Outfitters could utilise in Pakistan. There are so many bloggers and celebrities on Instagram and Facebook that would to showcase the brand’s products because most of them are looking for clothes and lifestyle products that are smart and chic or “vogue”. There are many huge malls in the cities as well now where the brand can have their stores and attract an even larger number of customer base (Foster, 2018).
Another advantage of expanding in Pakistan apart from the general demand for western clothing, is the lack of competitors. In a developing economy, the brand will not have a problem in acquiring cheap labour, or land. Neither would they face any of their regular competitors such as the Gap and H&M which are equally as popular, if not more, as Urban Outfitters in the United States or Europe. So, the brand has the opportunity to have a fresh start in a new country. Since, textiles and the cotton industries are two of the most prominent industries in the country, the business also won’t have problems with acquiring raw material, or other resources and that too for lower prices. Adjusting in the market would be easy as well since it is well-established and not so different to what Urban Outfitters is used to. It could offer discounts as well which would increase the sales (Nasir, 2020).
Urban Outfitters would have to change their product line in order to expand in Pakistan entirely. Since, cultural values and religious obligations do still dictate dress codes for a lot of people so some pieces of clothing would be less popular than the others such as miniskirts, shorts et cetera but there will still be people buying them too. If the brand can launch a “modest” line side by side by a tapping into a new market for the brand but one which is well established in the country then it could earn double profit. A lot of the women youth that wears “hijab” looks for clothing articles that have a western look and yet are still modest. Such products could increase the customer base for Urban Outfitters considerably (Lodi, 2020).
References
Nasir, J. (2020, April). Textile Industrialists Want to Invest $5 Billion in The Industry. Retrieved from https://propakistani.pk/2019/12/28/textile-industrialists-want-to-invest-5-billion-in-the-industry/
Zafar, H. (n.d.). Changing Trends in the Lifestyle of Pakistani Urban Youth: Glimpses from Lahore. Retrieved from http://cppg.fccollege.edu.pk/changing-trends-in-the-lifestyle-of-pakistani-urban-youth-glimpses-from-lahore/
Lodi, H. (2020, February). Modest Fashion: What Does it Mean for a South Asian Girl. Retrieved from https://www.masala.com/modest-fashion-what-does-it-mean-for-a-south-asian-girl-319035.html
Annual Report. (2019). http://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReports/PDF/NASDAQ_URBN_2018.pdf
Foster, B. (2018, September). How Urban Outfitters is Capturing the Millennial Market. Retrieved from https://blog.smile.io/urban-outfitters-is-capturing-the-millennial-market