Zara, H&M and Uniqlo – high street fashion meets e-commerce

Zara’s launch certainly generated a peak in comment about the brand, with Zara-lovers becoming briefly excited about the prospect of shopping online.  However, the announcement was significantly overshadowed by H&M’s tie-in with Lanvin.  Neither announcement experienced any sustained commentary.  (That said, when Lanvin stock arrives in-store, we can probably assume a hefty rise in commentary.)

Uniqlo x Twitter

Uniqlo has 13 stores in the UK, all of which are located in the south-east.  To help put that into perspective, H&M has 173 stores in the UK and Zara has around 65.  With a comparatively limited retail footprint, Uniqlo lacks the brand visibility that comes with a nationwide chain of stores.  So, to launch their e-commerce site, the Japanese retailer headed to Twitter and asked consumers to tweet in order to see prices of its products drop.  The campaign not only highlighted that the online store was about to launch, but that consumers have power over Uniqlo’s pricing.

As a general rule, Uniqlo generates an average of 150 tweets each day.  With its twitter campaign peaking, the company was pulling in 600 tweets yesterday.  Now, I haven’t read every tweet, but I do know that the word most often used to describe Uniqlo’s campaign was “cool”.  Time, and online sales, will tell if this campaign has been a success – but, the company has managed to engage with its potential consumers in a very positive way.