Urban Outfitters Features Subscription Rental Service for Clothes

The American fashion and lifestyle Urban Outfitters launches a subscription-based rental service for women’s apparel.

Through this offer, called Nuuly, customers may sign up for a monthly subscription
Terms of the offer: rent up to 6 items, or over $800 worth of initial retail value, for $88/month.
After one month, the items are returned and swapped for other products. Customers may also choose to purchase the articles they rented at an attractive price.
The offer includes:
- A broad offering of URBN’s own brands (Urban Outfitters, Free People and Anthropologie),
- Rare vintage items,
- Fashion streetwear and denim offerings from brands including Reebok, Fila, Champion, Levi’s, Wrangler, DL1961, Paige, AYR, or Citizens of Humanity
- Brands from designer labels including Universal Standard, Naadam, LoveShackFancy, Chufy, Gal Meets Glam, Ronny Kobo and Anna Sui
This service will launch in the US this summer: more than 1,000 items will be available and 100 items will be added each week.

Matching customers’ new consumption habits as they are increasingly interested in renting items rather than buying them, including consumer durables. They pay more attention to the impact of the sharing economy.
Besides, in the clothing sector, consumers (especially Millennials) expect more and new products they can afford. Leasing offers may then help merchants meet these two expectations at once.
Achieving leading status with a subscription model in the fashion industry. According to Urban Outfitters, the men’s apparel market would be worth $120 billion in the US. They intend to apply long-lasting changes to their business model so they may win a significant proportion on a fast-growing market, while avoiding to negatively impact on their brick-and-mortar outlets.

Urban Outfitters expects to attract 50,000 subscribers with this service and earn $50 million in revenue for the first year.
A warehouse and fulfilment centre outside Philadelphia are in place to ship the items, handle returns and clean the articles before they can be rented again. Logistical issues have to be overcome when launching this type of service: Urban Outfitters opted for an internal management approach.
Several retailers in the US have already entered this market: the unicorn Rent the Runway, for instance, features 3 rental offers for clothes. Customers are charged $159/month and may rent an unlimited number of fashion articles (not more than 4 times at once).

Category : Alertes quotidiennes