UNIQLO Case Study

This report is about UNIQLO, the world fourth largest fashion retailer (Forbes, 2015), which is a dominant clothier in Japan. UNIQLO entered the Chinese market in 2002, the first branches was opened in Shanghai, which is the first foreign fashion retailer introduced the concept of fast fashion to China and the first one who apply the strategy of General Merchandise Store in China’s fashion retail industry. UNIQLO has maintained its leading position among the foreign fashion enterprise in China. Until April 2016, UNIQLO has 444 branches in China (UNIQLO, 2016). This report will discuss the fashion retail industry in China, the 4C and 4P analysis of UNIQLO, its Strengths, Weaknesses as well as the Opportunities and Threats that it deals with,
After China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), more and more foreign companies began to invest and develop their branches in China such as UNIQLO, Zara. Because of China’s accession to the WTO, the Chinese policy towards foreign investment become more substantial and provides more flexible modes for investment. In order to expand their business and benefit from such a huge market, foreign fashion retailers are entering China, Hugo Boss and Ralph Lauren are examples of the first division; UNIQLO and H&M are examples of the second division. However, the entry of foreign companies has led to increasing competitive pressure to local fashion companies due to their powerful experience and has occupied most of the market
UNIQLO posits itself as a fast fashion retailer. It initially registered as “UNI-CLO” which stands for “unique clothing warehouse” but staff in charge of registration misread the "C" as "Q", and that is how the brand name was born (The SUN, 2010). The meaning of the name “UNIQLO” is that to provide good quality of clothing with reasonable price through warehouse type of store that abundant unnecessary decoration. UNIQLO entered the Chinese market in 2002, the first branch was opened in Shanghai, which is the first foreign fashion retailer introduced the concept of fast fashion to China and the first one who apply the strategy of General Merchandise Store in China’s fashion retail industry. UNIQLO has maintained its leading position among the foreign fashion enterprise in China. Until April 2016, UNIQLO has 444 branches in China (UNIQLO, 2016), the income made by their China’s branches reached 300 billion Yen which is approximately 18 billion RMB (Apple Daily, 2015). The aim of UNIQLO is to open 1000 stores in China by 2020 (Nikkei Inc,