Start Licensing’s Ian Downes highlights how the number of retailers featuring licensed products in-store has changed and evolved, with a visit to Urban Outfitters on London’s Oxford Street.
I always find it interesting to see how different retailers engage with licensing in their stores. One facet of licensing that has changed and evolved over the years is that the number of retailers which feature licensed products in their shops has increased and there is much more variety among them. There isn’t one specific profile of retail or retail usage to point to these days in the way that many years ago Woolworths was held up as the retailer of choice for licensing. I think this is a welcome development and an indication that licensing is maturing.
With this thought in mind, I popped into the Urban Outfitters store on Oxford Street for a dose of Looking Out.
This branch of Urban Outfitters occupies a corner plot towards the Oxford Circus end of Oxford Street and is a big unit set over a number of floors. Presentation wise, the store has an ‘urban meets industrial’ feel to it with lots of bare concrete walls coupled with raw metal fittings, wooden display units, wooden flooring and big lighting rigs. I am sure Drew from Quest TV’s Salvage Hunters would love to have Urban Outfitters as one of his clients, particularly as a home for his upcycled lighting salvaged from factory units across the UK.
Urban Outfitters has a particular style and personality which seems to resonate well with younger consumers. Whenever I visit one of the stores they seem to be busy and have a vibrant feel about them. My sense is the buying team keeps a keen eye on trends at a macro and micro level to do their best to ensure that the shops have a contemporary feel and appeal to them.
The core focus of Urban Outfitters is apparel, but it is a retailer that has built a mixed product portfolio. Arguably part of its appeal is the fact that it has a blended approach to product. This mixed economy approach to product mix in retail seems to be a growing trend, with a number of retailers now offering a more diverse range of products beyond those they traditionally focused on. This probably reflects the fact that consumers like to ‘discover’ products when they shop in physical stores these days.
One focal point for Urban Outfitters is selling vinyl records. It has these located near the front of the store. It has a focused range of records on sale billed as ‘Team Faves’. The presence reinforces the growing popularity of vinyl records coupled with the importance of music in the ‘pop culture’ world. Indeed, music meets fashion in Urban Outfitters as music is a strong theme in the apparel collections with bands such as The Streets featuring on t-shirts.
Urban Outfitters is also supporting ‘art on t-shirts’, a theme that seems popular across retail at the moment. It had a number of t-shirts featuring Japanese artist Hokusai. It also had t-shirts featuring brands such as Pokémon and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. In both cases it was offering designs which seemed to suit the store vibe and customer profile: the Pokémon t-shirt included Japanese text, while the Turtles shirt featured a ‘vintage’ comic cover. The way Urban Outfitters presents the t-shirt ranges encourages consumers to browse and find designs they like. I noticed the same t-shirts were on sale in a number of different locations throughout the store and weren’t pigeonholed into one specific genre or location.
Apparel wise Urban Outfitters also carries a broad range of accessories such as baseball caps. These are sold in a dedicated space and include US sports teams and fashion brands. It was also interesting to see Urban Outfitters dedicating space to brands such as Ed Hardy. The Ed Hardy brand had been allocated a decent amount of space and seems to be a brand well suited to Urban Outfitters in terms of design. I am guessing Urban Outfitters likes to be considered a destination store for certain brands that it has nurtured relationships with.
Dickies was another brand that featured in-store quite prominently. I am presuming that these sort of deals and ranges have a licensing element to them. Seeing retailers such as Urban Outfitters tapping up brands like Ed Hardy is a good demonstration of how brands are an important part of the retail mix and give retailers collateral that they can be creative with while using them to connect with consumers as well.
Beyond apparel it was interesting to see the space and opportunity Urban Outfitters is giving to books in-store. Books were on sale in a number of areas throughout the store including a dedicated ‘Book Shop’ display. Licensed brands and titles featured in the mix including a Vogue magazine colouring book and The Peanuts Book, a hardback ‘visual history’ of the comic strip published by Dorling Kindersley. I also noticed that the retailer was selling a number of reprinted books including a Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Dessert Book which was first published in the 1970s I believe.
I think this underscores Urban Outfitters’ vintage vibe and the fact that it buys into lifestyle brands that have a heritage. It also seemed to favour smaller format books that could be bought as gift items or special editions like the Peanuts book which would appeal to fans of a particular brand.
Another category Urban Outfitters is supporting is lighting. This seems to be a category in growth in licensing with companies like Paladone and Fizz Creations investing in the category. Brands featuring in-store across the lighting category included Barbie, Care Bears and Super Mario. Gaming has definitely been a driver for growth in the category, but it also seems to be a category that has ‘aged up’ in licensing terms.
Traditionally licensed lighting products used to focus on preschool and early school consumers, with the most common product being bedside lamps with character identified lampshades. Lighting products are now more likely to include 3D design and tooling, coupled with brands that work for older consumers. They are also items that are now seen as gift purchases particularly thinking of smaller scale products that work as desk accessories or home décor items.
Other categories in-store that featured licensed brands included lip balms. There were a number of licensed products in this category located at till points as pick up items. Featured brands included Pepsi Max and Reese’s.
One final observation I would make about Urban Outfitters was that it has recognised that there is a value in making shopping in the ‘real world’ an experience. This is reflected in the store layout and how products are displayed, including the point made earlier that customers can graze in-store to discover ‘what they are looking for’. The experiential element is also delivered with other features such as the inclusion of vintage video game terminals – not sure if these are for display, playable or for sale but their presence adds to the ambience of the store and helps dial up the shopping experience.
It was good to see so many examples of licensed product on sale in Urban Outfitters. It is good to know that licensing is playing a part in the product mix for retailers like Urban Outfitters and that it is gaining traction outside of the traditional retail channels most often associated with licensing.
My visit also reinforced my ongoing observation that licensing is getting better at the design side of the business – offering a wider selection of design themes plus showing more of a willingness to invest in bespoke products that reflect the brand experience fans are looking for.
Ian Downes runs Start Licensing, an independent brand licensing agency. His Twitter handle is @startlicensing – he would welcome your suggestions for what to look out for.
