Challenge

With more than 30,000 employees and $9.66B in sales, UNIQLO is Japan's leading clothing retail chain in both sales and profits. The brand is well-known and beloved in many countries worldwide, but has struggled to replicate this dominance in the US market. In the midst of this low awareness, we were hired in the spring of 2012 to launch UNIQLO.com, the brand’s first stateside commerce storefront. Our challenge was to deliver a digital flagship experience that immersed shoppers in the brand’s famous blend of utility and fun, while positing the site to achieve sales goals of $20MM within two years.

Idea

UNIQLO.com launched only five months after we were hired. What we did to get there:

• Used responsive design and an automated, fluid grid system that flexibly adapts to a broad array of content and devices

• Reinvented the way products are browsed and displayed in a digitally native manner, with purchase always one click away

• Implemented multifaceted search and filtering to provided quick discovery within a broad, complex product set

• Leveraged individual purchase data to make the shopping experience more personalized and relevant

• Developed a custom CMS for marketing staff to publish promotions hourly, and oversaw integration with the back-end ecommerce system

• Produced an in-store digital installation to create buzz around store opening

• Managed the launch of the new site via social channels

Results

Results have been phenomenal. UNIQLO.com achieved record sales the first day the online store was open, and routinely achieves 300 percent on daily sales targets. Critical acclaim has been nearly universal — a Businessweek article noted “…the UNIQLO site feels like the next generation of the ecommerce experience.”