UNIQLO, GU, H&M...Digital marketing strategies of Fast Fashion industry

This is the sixth post in our "Data-driven job hunting" series. This time, we would like to focus on the fast fashion industry, which is still expecting a growing demand amidst the rising prices of all kinds of goods and services. Although it is an industry that is very familiar to many, it can be difficult to analyze the overall industry and companies. We hope you will find this article insightful.

We will be analyzing UNIQLO, GU, and H&M, companies within the fast fashion industry. We will analyze each company's official website and app from a marketing perspective to study how each company attracts its customers online and what kind of users they are able to successfully attract.

First, let's look at the changes in the number of visitors for each website.

A comparison of the monthly average number of visitors for each website shows that UNIQLO has the largest number of visitors, with a ratio of UNIQLO: GU: H&M = 10:4:1. The growth seen in the number of visitors on the UNIQLO website in May can be assumed to be due to the Kanshasai Festival of Gratitude gift and discount campaign held from May 27 to June 6 (Reference: The UNIQLO Kanshasai Festival of Gratitude held from May 27 to June 6, 2022, with giveaways including local confections from 47 prefectures across Japan | Inzai Topic).
GU's graph also has a similar waveform to that of UNIQLO. This may be due to the fact that during the UNIQLO campaign mentioned above, consumers were unable to find what they were looking for at UNIQLO, so they visited the website for GU, a fast-fashion brand also owned by the Fast Retailing parent company, to take a look around.

Next, here are the changes in new user rates for each website.

H&M’s new user rate is 30%, the highest among all the websites. On the other hand, UNIQLO has a low new user rate and a high percentage of repeat visitors. To find out why this is the case, let’s take a look at the traffic sources for each website.

For each website, what are the most common inflow routes and through which channels?

First, it is worth noting that UNIQLO attracts a high percentage of visitors from organic searches, but an equally high percentage from emails. If you sign up for UNIQLO's email newsletter (also known as an e-newsletter), you will be the first to get information about price cuts and special campaigns and receive coupons exclusive to those subscribed to the newsletter. The email newsletter is a CRM strategy to attract repeat visitors or customers. On the other hand, as for H&M, the inflow from organic search is notable, and the percentage of inflow from email is the lowest among the three brands.

These such strategies may be contributing to H&M's high rate of new users and UNIQLO's high rate of repeater visitors, as introduced earlier.

We can also see that H&M has a high percentage of its visitors coming from social media, which may indicate H&M’s success in attracting new customers using a social media strategy and achieving a high new user rate.
So what measures is H&M taking with respect to social media? Let's take a look at the breakdown.

About 90% of the sales are coming from LINE, a social media and messenger app. One of the H&M’s strategies seems to be its collaboration with LINE stamps (downloadable emoji stickers used in the LINE texting app). H&M had released stamps designed and created in collaboration with popular character stamps such as Usagi Teikoku, Konezumi, and Urusee Tori for a limited time. In order to use these stamps, you needed to add H&M's official LINE account as a “friend.” In other words, it is thought that the collaboration with popular LINE stamps encouraged people to add the official H&M LINE account as a friend and create the online connection, helping H&M reach a large following on LINE.

GU, on the other hand, averages across channels such as organic search, listing ads, and email. Of these, like H&M, the social media breakdown is quite unique.
Here is the social media breakdown for each website.

As with the number of visitors mentioned at the beginning of this report, UNIQLO, which has the largest website in terms of scale, is the leader when it comes to the number of sessions (visits) for the website as a whole, but GU leads the pack in terms of sessions (visits) that come in from LINE.

Firstly, similar to H&M, it seems to have something to do with its collaborative LINE stamps. GU released a collaborative stamp with popular manga character Chiikawa, and to use this LINE stamp for free, you must add GU's official LINE account as a friend.

In addition, LINE Shopping’s online store is also likely to have contributed to the influx of visitors coming from LINE to the GU website. GU has over 1,900 items listed on LINE Shopping (as of January 10, 2023). When you make a purchase on LINE Shopping, you will be redirected to the GU website. In other words, it is thought that the company is increasing the number of sessions coming in from social media by attracting users who are using LINE Shopping, which offers great ways collect points and save, with over 1,900 products that help direct users to the GU website.

It is interesting to note that even within the same Fast Retailing group, the browser version of the websites for UNIQLO and GU have different traffic sources when attracting customers--UNIQLO uses email newsletters and GU uses LINE.

We have looked at how each company's website attracts customers, but UNIQLO, GU, and H&M all have smartphone apps, which we believe play an important role in each company's marketing. We will now analyze the official apps released by each company.
First, below is a graph showing the number of people who activated the app.

Comparing the average monthly number of users for each app, the ratio of UNIQLO:GU: H&M = 15:7.5:1, with the UNIQLO app having the highest number of users, just like they have the highest number of visitors to their website. The increase in the number of UNIQLO app users in October 2022 can be attributed to the "UNIQLO App’s 10th Anniversary" campaign, which was held from October 21 to November 2, 2022, where UNIQLO offered gift and coupons. (Reference: Shop better with the app. UNIQLO App’s 10th Anniversary held from October 21｜Press Release）

However, the fact that the number of UNIQLO app users grew in October and did not remain high until November 2022 suggests that the outcome of this strategy may have been short-term. In addition, the waveform trends that UNIQLO and GU exhibit on the graphs are similar on the app as well as on the website.

Comparing the number of users on the website and on the app, all three companies have more users on the app. This suggests that fast fashion companies should focus more on apps than on the websites.

Let's also look at the user demographics of each app.

As for the sex of users, there are more female users for all the apps, but more than 70% of users are women for both the GU and H&M apps.

In terms of age group, GU and H&M have a high percentage of users in their 20s to 40s, while UNIQLO's graph has a similar shape to the graph of all Internet users, showing that it is used by a wide range of age groups.

GU attracts younger women, while UNIQLO attracts men and a wide range of users, including those in their 50s and 60s. GU is more trend-oriented, while UNIQLO is more everyday “lifestyle” fashion.

Next, we will take a look at the other apps used by users of each app.

In general, the same apps ranked, but GU and H&M app users have Mercari (a popular flea market app) in their top 10 apps of interest, while UNIQLO users do not. GU and H&M users are more focused on inexpensive, or more affordable, markets which is thought to be the reason why the flea market app Mercari is ranked in the top 10 apps of interest.

The reason why the Amazon Shopping app is among the top apps of interest among UNIQLO users is that the UNIQLO app is used by a very large number of people across all age groups and has the same user demographic trends as the entire Internet population.

It is also noteworthy that UNIQLO has two convenience store apps ranked in the list (7-Eleven and Lawson). This is likely related to UNIQLO's aggressive promotion of its convenience store pickup service.

The Mitsui Shopping Park app ranks high on the list of apps of interest among H&M users (Mitsui Shopping Park is a shopping mall).
H&M offers a service that collects used clothes from its stores, and in return, users of the service can receive a coupon on the H&M app. Given the need to visit a physical H&M store and the need to have the H&M app, it is highly likely that the app for Mitsui Shopping Park, a department store which has a full list of various physical stores, also ranks high as an app of interest among H&M app users.

In this report, we analyzed UNIQLO, GU, and H&M, major companies in the fast fashion industry.
Finally, we summarize our findings for each company that we found from this analysis.

Overall
・All three companies have more users on their apps than on their websites.

UNIQLO
・Both its website and app has the highest number of
・Its website has the lowest percentage of new users among the three companies
・A high percentage of users visit via email, which leads to a large number of repeat visitors
・The app has a relatively large number of male users and is used by across all age groups, including those in their 40s to 60s
・Aggressive promotion of its convenience store pickup service is thought to have contributed to the popularity of convenience store apps among UNIQLO app users

GU
・Among inflow from social media, a large number of users came from LINE, possibly due to the impact of LINE stamps, LINE Shopping, etc.
・Many of the GU app users are from younger age groups and are female

H&M
・It has the highest rate of new users among the three companies
・Its high percentage of new users come from organic search, but a low percentage of new users come from email, which leads to the high new user rate
・Many of the app users are from younger age groups and are female
・The Mitsui Shopping Park app ranked among apps of interest due to its used clothing collection service

▼Data from Dockpit was used in this case study. Dockpit is an online behavior analytics tool provided by VALUES, Inc., and it allows you to access online behavioral data (updated monthly) via your browser so you can research competitor websites and investigate trends. There is a FREE version of Dockpit, so if you are interested in using it, please register below.