J.C. Penney takes on Uniqlo, Zara with Joe Fresh

As of last weekend, Canadian fashion brand Joe Fresh will be available in most J.C. Penney stores – in 681 of 1,100 to be precise. The store-in-store concept is the department store chain’s biggest step in its current attempt at reinventing itself and

turning its locations into collections of boutiques.

Joe Fresh was launched in 2006 by food distributor Loblaw Companies Limited, based in Toronto. The aim was to provide fashionable and highly affordable clothes – like a kind of Canadian H&M – with the difference that it was conceived as a brand readily available at common retail stops like supermarkets.

Since then, the company has expanded its concept and offers its brand at 18 standalone stores apart from 300 in-store locations across Canada. The opening of an eye-catching, 14,000-square-foot flagship store on New York’s Fifth Avenue in March 2012 was a full success and confirmed the company’s foray into the US market, now strengthened by the agreement with J.C. Penney.

The competition is on
Reason enough for brands aiming for a similar price bracket and customer base to be more than a bit worried. In September of last year, J.C. Penney Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson had called Joe Fresh a “pretty good answer” to popular international fast-fashion pioneers such as Spain’s Inditex with Zara, Japan’s Fast Retailing with Uniqlo and Sweden’s Hennes & Mauritz with H&M.

Online, the brand has already been a hit, with J.C. Penney seeing a significant increase in visitors and first-time buyers since the introduction of Joe Fresh last month. According to Siiri Dougherty, J.C. Penney’s general merchandise manager of women’s apparel, most Joe Fresh locations will not be in a mall with an H&M, and the style is “more comprehensive” compared to Uniqlo. And not to forget, most competitors do not have shop-in-shops. Yet. Should the J.C. Penney/Joe Fresh model work out, more brands may follow suit.

“I don’t think initially people will know what Joe Fresh is, but once the word gets out, it spreads like wildfire. We’re hoping that our current customer base will find something new and exciting, and we’re hoping that it’ll appeal to a whole different customer base that really hasn’t been into a J.C. Penney in a very long time, if ever,” said Dougherty.

Image: Joe Fresh