I chose Brandy Melville and Uma Wang, two clothing stores with completely different brand styles and audiences, for research and comparison.
I visited the store on Anfu Road in Shanghai’s Xuhui district where Brandy Melville, a fast-selling clothing brand, is located.
This is a shop facing the street. There is a blue jeep outside the shop, which makes the shop very recognizable and can leave a deep impression and attract people to shop in the shop. The whole shop is decorated in a vibrant style and plays pop music that makes you feel good. There are a large number of clothes in the store, and all sizes of each dress will be displayed, so that customers can choose the right size for them to try on. The clothing styles of this brand are updated quickly, and are mainly sweet and sporty, suitable for young girls, and according to the change of the season, will launch suitable clothes for the season. They also sell accessories such as hats, bags and necklaces. Since the number of customers in the store is far more than that of sales, they provide a very convenient fitting room. After choosing the style and size they like on the shelf, customers can enter the fitting room to try on by themselves without the service of sales staff. There will also be some walking salespeople in the store who can help customers in times of need. The brand’s Stores in China employ a handful of Internet celebrities and fashion bloggers, often pretty, who can promote Brandy Melville while wearing its clothes inside the store. And these people themselves have a certain reputation, can bring heat to the brand. I looked at the store of clothing tag, found that the brand’s tag design is very concise, is a piece of white card with the price and size, the customer can be very intuitive understanding of the price of clothing, do not need to ask the sales, and most of the price of the product is not more than RMB 300, out-of-season products are also often have discount, very affordable, suitable for students.
The second shop I investigated was Uma Wang in Taigu, Sanlitun, Beijing. It’s a niche designer brand.
Uma Wang’s store is located in a shopping mall with high consumption level. There are usually not many customers in the store and soothing music is played, so customers can enjoy one-to-one service from sales staff in a very quiet and comfortable atmosphere. Uma Wang’s clothes are all dark colors, mostly brown. The clothes are exquisite and full of details, but they are not suitable for most People’s Daily commuting. Besides, the styles do not change much according to the season, and most of them are suitable for spring and summer. I think one of the shining points of this brand is that its clothes are dyed with vegetable dyes, which is very environmentally friendly. Only classic and latest season styles are displayed in the store, and only one of each will hang on the hanger. If you need other sizes, you’ll need to ask the sales staff to pick them up from the warehouse. The decoration style of the store is consistent with the design concept of the designer, and the overall tone is mainly dark, full of zen atmosphere. In the store, some installation works will be arranged according to the theme of the season, so that the whole store is full of artistic sense, with good viewing. The tags on the clothes will indicate how they are washed, and the tags will be made of special materials, which in itself looks like a work of art. Uma Wang’s clothes cost more than 4000 RMB for each item and are rarely discounted, which is suitable for people with a certain economic foundation.
After the investigation and comparison of the two stores, I found that different brands can better attract their target customers through the site selection, decoration style and service characteristics of the stores. Moreover, each store is designed in line with the brand’s own style and concept, and has a very good recognition.