The apparel store industry within the USA is a highly competitive market, consisting of number of companies that are willing to fight for their share of the market. To remain afloat in this business, corporations must be highly innovative, price-conscious, knowing the trend, and with great responses to consumer needs. Each company within this industry must be aware of the competitors’ move, trying to match every trends and benefits offered by another, in order to steal the average consumers. Market-alertness is the key to survival; each company must balance marketing strategies and customer-service, responding to consumer demands within the shortest processing time possible. This paper shall provide an analysis of the apparel store industry through Urban Outfitters, Inc.
Urban Outfitters, Inc.: About the Company Urban Outfitters, Inc.(hereinafter referred to as Urban Outfitters or the “Company” for brevity) is a company that has brought to the world brands such as Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People , Leifsdottir and Terrain.The company is selling to the US, Canada and Europe through brick and mortar stores, specialty stores, department stores as well as websites and catalogs. Further from its website, each brand has its own target market and each caters to this market by offering “an eclectic mix of merchandise in which hard and soft goods are cross merchandised; and construct unique product displays that incorporate found objects into creative selling vignettes.” Additionally, from the Company’s website, the emphasis is on creativity; it wants to create a powerful connection with its target market through the arts the merchandise convey that the customers are persuaded to buy. The Company has been in operation since 1970, selling inexpensive clothing to college and graduate school students in Pennsylvania. Free People was opened first to big success. By 1976, the name was changed
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