Uniqlo, the largest casual clothing brand in Japan, recently announced its new concept shop in Tokyo’s mega-town Shinjuku city. The news created a huge sensation because the shop will be a jointly branded with BIC Camera, one of Japan’s largest electronics retail store (a Japanese version of Best Buy/Office Depot). Fashion+electronics, by some of the largest retailers in Japan.
The new store will be branded as “BIQLO (or BICLO? An apparent combination of Uniqlo and BIC Camera)” and is scheduled to open on September 27. This is one of the first major retail stores to have a major electronics retail store and a fashion brand collaborating to capture a new markets.
The mega-shop will feature 11 floors (3 underground levels/8 ground levels) consisting of 3 floors of Uniqlo , with BIC Camera taking the remainder. The area is approximately 2,912.85 square meters, with over 480 store staff fluent in Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean. Details on the interior space and layout are yet to be made public. However, according to numerous sources, the shop will be a totally new experience with some “calculated messy-ness” so-to-speak. The shop will have mannequins wearing Uniqlo’s items and “using” BIC Camera’s electronic devices (as shown below).
This new joint effort does seem to be a good fit as both brands are assumed to have target household with similar disposable income levels of middle-class working citizens. Shinjuku, already one of the busiest cities in Tokyo’s metropolitan area, is traditionally dominated mostly by large electronics retail stores and fashion retailers that target teens and early twenties.
SFFT will follow up with the details of the shop once it opens and add some analysis of the impact and influence this may possibly have on the fashion/retail industry dynamics in the region. After all, San Franciscans are well aware of these days from the very recent news and promotional events of its scheduled soon-to-be launch of its U.S. west coast flagship store in San Francisco on October 5th (according to press release on 8/30/2012). An opening much anticipated.
