The opening of a new Urban Outfitters outlet in Kingston Upon Thames on the 9th October was the talk of the town for teens tired of trekking into central London to scratch their shopping itch – but will the comparatively upmarket clothing chain survive competition against Kingston’s lower-priced market?
An obliging shop assistant said that since its opening party, the new shop had been fairly quiet during the week and busier at the weekends, although since this was the half term week for some schools, it was seeing a few more customers.
A survey of randomly selected shoppers on a Friday afternoon two weeks after the outlet opened suggested that while most visitors had bought an item from Urban Outfitters in the past, they only purchased from the brand a few times a year, or monthly at most.
Instead, more popular brands included Primark, Zara, H&M and Bershka; every chain cited by those surveyed as their ‘most visited’ fell into a much lower price bracket than Urban Outfitters.
Affirming the suggestion that Urban Outfitters prices are higher than Kingston’s shoppers are used to, only 25% of those surveyed said that the brand was within their usual budget.
Despite this, the visitors seemed enthusiastic: almost all interviewees described shopping as an activity they could enjoy with friends; although only 23% said that they would be buying an item that day, the shop was still fairly full of contented browsers.
Urban Outfitters’ target demographic is, according to their website, ‘college-age’, and almost all shoppers on Friday were teenage girls or young women. However, this evidence may suggest that their prices do not cater to the lower budgets of younger buyers.
Their business model may work in their roomier sites in central London, but with plenty of window shopping and not much purchasing, will the smaller space in Kingston be able to sustain itself?
Only time will tell.
