New Delhi: Uniqlo is planning to open a majority of its upcoming stores in India in a smaller format in the range of 10,000-15,000 sq ft - compared to most of its current store sizes in the range of 20,000-35,000 sq ft - and the world's third largest fashion brand has pruned the size of a large store in New Delhi, according to three people familiar with the development.
Uniqlo has slashed the store size in Vegas Mall in Dwarka by almost half to about 10,500 sq ft and reduced it from earlier version spanning two floors to just one floor.
A Uniqlo spokesperson said the company has no plans to reduce the sizes of any other existing store in the NCR where the company has all of its six India outlets. "Our goal to provide Uniqlo and its LifeWear offerings to our customers remains strong and we will keep exploring appropriate opportunities to expand Uniqlo's footprint further," the spokesperson said in an email response.
One of the sources said sales at some of the Uniqlo stores do not justify the large areas the stores occupy. "So, they are adopting a hub-and-spoke strategy of one large flagship store in a city with others being smaller stores," said a person familiar with the development, talking about Uniqlo's expansion plans. Now Uniqlo plans to open most of its upcoming stores in the range of 10,000-15,000 sq ft barring some flagship stores, sources said.
"Uniqlo operates stores to service its customers. As such, we choose our store size and locations based on the prospective needs of customers in a given area," a company spokesperson said in an email response.
"Our aim is to continue working closely with our partners, including developers, to create longstanding and successful endeavours that benefit the communities we operate in."