Uniqlo has made the most of inexpensive labor in Asia to become a leading global SPA player. But making goods overseas is not necessarily compatible with responding quickly to customer needs. That is why the company is rethinking the typical approach of churning out products in emerging economies.
To more swiftly respond to customer needs, the company is working on a system for sending out goods in as few as 10 days. To achieve that, airplanes will be essential, although costly.
Not every product needs to be delivered by air. But how to decide which item, and how many, should be shipped via plane? That is what the Ariake office is working on. It has established a system that suggests the best course of action after factoring in such variables as production status, inventory level, shipping time, shipping capacity for surface and air options, and delivery to the store.
Another change has been to offer a service where customers can visit a physical Uniqlo store and be fitted for a particular item of clothing. Once they get the sizing sussed, the customers can order—and pay for—the product online and have the finished product delivered to their homes straight from a warehouse. That means no waiting around in a shop to have trousers hemmed. Yanai is betting that this type of interplay between physical and online stores will go over well with shoppers.
But online retailing is a tough business, especially with Google and Amazon keen to sell more clothing on their online platforms. Kusaka insists, however, that Uniqlo's expertise in operating real stores and serving customers in person offers it an unbeatable edge over its web-based rivals.
Yanai wants online sales to climb to about 30% of the total, up from about 5% now.
