Why Is Uniqlo Opening a Coffee Shop in Ginza?
UNIQLO opened its first branded café, UNIQLO COFFEE, on the 12th floor of its renovated Ginza flagship store in Tokyo. The café serves house-brewed coffee and specialty drinks, plus desserts made with the long-established Ginza confectionery shop Ginza West. The store opened on the 17th of the month.
The renovation is the brand's first major update since entering the Ginza area ten years ago, built around the concept New Life, New Wear, New GINZA. It adds installation art and a flower shop, UNIQLO FLOWER. From LVMH to MARNI, other clothing and luxury brands are also entering coffee, making the sector more competitive.
UNIQLO opened its first café, "UNIQLO COFFEE," on the top floor of its flagship store in Ginza, Japan, marking another well-known clothing brand's cross-industry entry into the coffee sector. From luxury giant LVMH to streetwear brand MARNI, brands from all walks of life are joining the coffee race, making the competitive landscape of the coffee industry more diverse than ever. This article will walk you through the details of UNIQLO's café, analyze the business logic behind cross-industry cafés, and explore the impact of this trend on the coffee industry.
Clothing brand UNIQLO has recently made its official foray into the coffee sector, taking a cross-industry step forward.
According to overseas media reports, UNIQLO has opened its first branded café inside its largest flagship store in Japan — the "UNIQLO Ginza Store" (located at Ginza Komatsu East Building 1F-12F, 6-9-5 Ginza, Chuo Ward, Tokyo).
This UNIQLO store is designed around the concept "New Life, New Wear, New GINZA." and marks the brand's first major renovation since it entered the area ten years ago.
It is reported that the renovated UNIQLO Ginza flagship store incorporates many new elements, such as newly added installation art reflecting the brand's philosophy, a brand-new café "UNIQLO COFFEE," and a flower shop "UNIQLO FLOWER," giving the entire space a fresh look and bringing customers a different shopping experience.
The renovated UNIQLO Ginza flagship store is presented in the form of an exhibition, with large-scale exhibits displayed on every floor.
For example, a pendulum installation made of sweaters in 20 colors is placed at the first-floor entrance, while the fourth floor showcases the work "hitobito iroiro" by artist and architect emmanuelle moureaux.
Most notably, the top floor (12th floor) houses the first café, named "UNIQLO COFFEE."
UNIQLO COFFEE debuts its own house-brewed coffee, offering customers original coffee and specialty coffee drinks. At the same time, UNIQLO has partnered with the long-established Ginza confectionery shop "Ginza West" to sell desserts inside the café.
The store is scheduled to officially open on the 17th of this month.
Regarding the motivation behind the renovation, the person in charge stated: "We hope to let consumers rediscover the appeal of the Ginza district and inject new vitality into the area."
Public records show that UNIQLO opened its flagship store "UNIQLO" in Ginza in 2012. The entire building has 12 floors, with a sales floor area of approximately 5,000 square meters, making it the largest UNIQLO store in Japan. According to statistics, as of September 20, 2017, UNIQLO had 2,292 stores across 18 regions worldwide, of which 1,072 were overseas locations.
In combining the apparel industry with the coffee industry, UNIQLO is neither the first to try nor will it be the last.
Nowadays, cross-industry ventures have become the norm, and coffee has practically become a "cross-industry remedy."
In May 2019, Italian streetwear brand MARNI opened a MARNI MARKET CAFÉ pop-up coffee shop at Daci Temple Square in Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li, Chengdu.
Beyond the apparel sector, luxury giant LVMH also ventured into coffee, opening the world's first café "Le Café V." In addition, brands such as Burberry, Tiffany, and Armani have all dipped into the coffee industry by opening cafés.
Through this string of cross-industry moves, we have unconsciously grown accustomed to brands opening cafés across sectors. But what follows is that the coffee industry now faces increasingly diversified competition.
For example, café owners in the coffee sector now face competitors that are no longer limited to within the coffee industry itself. Besides competition among peers, there are emerging brands from cross-industry collaborations across various fields. Here, "emerging" refers to brands that break through traditional definitions. As major brands merge and collaborate, more novel products are being created (for instance, coffee drinks are no longer just bitter brews that are hard to swallow). These new products break the established mold, making the coffee market more diverse. Add to that the fact that each brand brings its own innovative advantages when going cross-industry — and cross-industry innovation itself knows no bounds in form — and more diversified competition becomes a natural outcome.
In a previous article, we also discussed why cross-industry ventures have become one of the most popular marketing methods among major brands. For details, please refer to this article: (Who would have thought! A lingerie brand is also doing cross-industry coffee), so we won't repeat it here.
In fact, specialty coffee itself is an emerging industry. When Starbucks entered the Chinese market in 1999, coffee was still quite unfamiliar to many people. Today, however, the coffee market has become diversified, and fierce competition is beyond doubt. That said, cross-industry collaborations with different fields allow for development from more diverse perspectives — and from that angle, perhaps it can also help the coffee industry grow more vibrantly.
Finally, do you think UNIQLO will open a café in China in the future?
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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
