Daily Newsletter

08 September 2023

Daily Newsletter

08 September 2023

Sainsbury’s new branded fashion hubs will improve competitiveness

The initial launch will see seven third-party brand partners introduced across nine new Sainsbury’s fashion destination hubs.

Claire Jenns September 07 2023

Sainsbury’s has announced the launch of fashion destination hubs in nine of its stores to grow its branded proposition at pace over the next five years and drive new customer acquisition.

Alongside its own brand Tu Clothing, there will be partners including Sosandar, Finery and Simply Be, which Sainsbury’s customers can also buy from online.

Working with these brands, Sainsbury’s will retail exclusive product ranges and support the expansion of the broader clothing offering, particularly across more specialist product areas such as curve, maternity, lingerie, and tailoring.

Analysis of Sainsbury's fashion strategy

GlobalData analyst Pippa Stephens asserts that the fashion expansion will drive Sainsbury’s performance going forwards by appealing to a wider selection of customers who would not usually consider shopping its Tu collections.

The supermarket states that it is catering to the demand Tu is seeing for an increased selection of fashion brands, broader range of styles and price ranges to supplement its own brand range. Reportedly, almost 40% of branded sales at Tu this year have come from its contemporary clothing brand offer.

A potential challenge for the venture is seamlessly integrating the perceptions of more premium brands with Sainsbury’s own image.

Stephens confirms that “All of the brands being included in these hubs have strong perceptions and higher price points than its own-brand line, giving Sainsbury's opportunity to improve its fashion credentials.

"However, Sainsbury's must ensure that it reflects the brands' more premium positionings instore and on its website, or else it may end up devaluing them."

The supermarket has also recently leveraged Habitat’s existing homewares proposition by opening concessions within its stores, setting a trend for other grocers. It will be looking to repeat this success for its new fashion hubs.

COVID-19 drove rapid digitalization within the retail and apparel sector

As ecommerce experienced booming growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, retailers accelerated their digitalization strategies to keep up with demand. The cloud has become an important model for delivering and maintaining enterprise IT resources. Many retailers have developed in-house cloud divisions that will allow them to better exploit the cloud’s capabilities. However, for those players that do not have the necessary skills in-house, the cloud can pose some significant challenges.

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