Selling jeans is one of the toughest tasks a retailer can take on – the product can often be similar but the branding and marketing mix determines success.
Denim is one of those fashion commodities that never goes out of style. It is however subject to myriad treatments, washes and stylings and, perhaps most of all, methods of display.
In days gone by things were simpler – jeans were folded in neat piles by size and leg length, stuck in a wall filled with pigeonholes and then care was taken to ensure that all of the waist sizes were available in order to facilitate self-selection. This was the modus operandi for almost all brands and retailers from Marks & Spencer to Levi’s.
Today, things have changed. The pigeonholes are still around, albeit entire denim walls are less common than they used to be, but now the shopper will encounter jeans laid full length on tables, hung by belt loops, or mixed with other items to create ‘lifestyle’ presentations. And the equipment on which denim is offered has also morphed, ranging from beaten up wooden tables (sometimes referred to as playing the heritage card), to mid-floor equipment that looks as if it has been plucked from one of Blake’s Satanic mills.
This should be unsurprising. Alongside the extension of merchandising methods has come a far greater range of prices. It is now possible to buy a pair of jeans for a little over £5 or to pay well north of £200 for an item that does pretty much the same job, such is the power of branding and merchandising when it comes to selling something that forms a part of almost every wardrobe everywhere.
Gap, Oxford Circus
As a brand, Gap has denim as part of its DNA and has been up and running as a denim destination since 1969. Denim is about creating reasons for shoppers to buy and Gap uses white on black simple font signage to inform shoppers that they are looking at jeans that are ‘Always skinny’, ‘Sexy boot’, ‘Real straight’ and ‘Sexy boyfriend’, if you are a woman, with variants for men.
Throughout the shop there are signs stating ‘The icon redefined’ and jeans are at the heart of this promotion, whether piled on shelves on the perimeter, or half-folded on low tables in the mid-shop. The upper part of the perimeter is eye-catching as well. Here, pairs of jeans have had their legs rolled up and are crumpled together to create a denim billboard for the commodity wherever it is located in store.
In visual merchandising terms, there is a large element of what-you-see-is-what-you-get about what has been done in this store
Levi’s, Regent Street
The Levi’s flagship on Regent Street is a store in flux and seems to change on an almost fortnightly basis. At present, the front part of the shop has a compound surrounded by low plywood walls in which a member of staff sits personalising jeans. In marketing terms, this is referred to as ‘adding value’ and is about providing some form of justification for the higher price points that constitute the bulk of the Levi’s offer.
It is also an introduction to a store that has a workshop not just close to its entrance, but which has been designed to feel like a factory throughout. This is an enormous space to devote to a single category. And care has been taken to create a hand-made ambience, with bicycles mounted on the wall above the “commuter” jeans, hand-chalked signage and galvanised steel supports for the perimeter fixtures. It is also the brand that can lay claim to the longest heritage and that has been used to advantage.
Primark, Tottenham Court Road/Oxford Street
This store has only been open a few weeks and is a flagship for the value fashion retailer. A pair of men’s jeans can be bought for £6, which sets the base price among mass-market retailers of the commodity. The store also sets a benchmark (which it has created by adopting the methods of those who sell jeans for very much more money) in terms of visual merchandising. There are jeans hung by their belt-loops on the perimeter and there are metal grids for showing single pairs of jeans and their various fits in the mid-shop. It is worth noting too the department branding which goes under the legend ‘Denim Co Est 1969’. The latter appears to be a mild dig at Gap, which has ‘1969’ (the year of its foundation) plastered all over the place in its shops.
Housekeeping is patchy, but then at this price level and with massive volume sales it would perhaps be foolish to expect the same experience as is offered in, say, Levi’s on Regent Street.
Diesel Male and Female, Carnaby Street
As an Italian designer jeans brand, shopping at Diesel veers towards the investment purchase end of the scale and the sense of a heavily branded commodity is everywhere. Perhaps uniquely in central London however, Diesel has split its offer between Male and Female with adjacent shops for each. The Male store puts signs, hung from steel chains, above the different denim styles on the perimeter and the shop is generally brightly lit with quirky graphics around the walls. Like All Saints, the environment is quasi-warehouse and plays on the idea that a pared back interior signals more expensive merchandise.
A small alley separates the Male and Female stores and the interior of the latter is an altogether softer experience with chandeliers overhead and denim displayed in a more obviously accessorised manner. Both shops stand out along a street that probably has more denim offers than anywhere else in the capital, largely through the simple expedient of separating the offer by gender.
All Saints, One New Change
Brick walls that have been whitewashed, bare wooden planked flooring and vintage sewing machines in the windows indicate that this must be All Saints. Jeans are distributed around the whole of the floor, rather than creating a dedicated denim department.
And as the shopper will be paying well above average high street prices for the merchandise, presentation standards are high and industrial in feel. As in Primark, pairs of jeans are hung from their belt-loops in certain parts of the shop, but in All Saints they are attached to the forward facing metal arm by a butcher’s hook.
Similarly, where the stock is laid on a table, density is low and the aged metal and wood centre-floor pieces of equipment appear to be refugees from a cotton-spinning mill of yesteryear. The ambience is dark and a little gothic, possibly going some way towards justifying the upscale pricing. There is also a strong element of lifestyling about the presentation.
Uniqlo, Oxford Circus
Like Primark, Uniqlo is about volume presentation for a price-conscious shopper. That said, this store plays most of the tricks that you’d expect of a retailer that understands that branding is an essential part of shifting jeans. Lower-torso mannequins sport pairs of jeans on the mid-shop tables, jeans are presented full length hanging and folded around the perimeter, and if you spend more than £19.90 there is a free same-day alteration service (£3 if you buy a pair of “bottoms” for under this price).
Once more, this is very straightforward presentation but, unlike the majority of other denim retailers, bright light in all areas is the order of the day. The use of white perimeter open-front wardrobes creates a sharp contrast with the blue and black of the denim.
This may be a value-led store but Uniqlo presents its denim in a manner that puts it in the same league as many of its more expensive rivals.
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