ZARA

With department stores still losing customers and sales to specialty shops, Sogo & Seibu Co. plan on following the lead of Matsuzakaya and Takeshimaya by inviting a specialty store into their department store. As the fast-fashion trend is slowly abating due to a girth of inventory and oversaturation, one fast-fashion brand is still commanding consistently high customers and sales - Zara part of the Spanish Inditex Group which first entered Japan in 1997, is able to stock and refresh a wide merchandise assortment of the latest trends with as little as two-week lead time. This means Zara is positioned well in terms of a slightly more, trendy consumer as well they are not stuck with excess inventory as each store manager buys directly from Spain for their own store.

On Wednesday 22 September Sogo & Seibu Co. will be the third department store chain in Japan to have a fast-fashion brand when Zara begins operations inside Seibu’s Yokohama department store. Zara will have about 750sqm of floor space and be one of the largest stores inside a department store. With the opening of Zara inside the Yokohama Seibu, Sogo & Seibu hope to recapture lost customers and sales as well as improve efficiency and return to relevancy in the retail market.

With Forever 21’s success in Ginza Matsuzakaya and Uniqlo in Takeshimaya, do you think the trend of fast-fashion brands opening in department stores will continue?