Nearly two years after it opened its first U.S. pop-up, Uniqlo’s sister brand GU is making an even bigger commitment to the North American market.
On Thursday, the company opened its first permanent store outside of Asia in New York City’s Soho neighborhood. It also launched its first e-commerce website and app in the U.S. With these new digital offerings, GU is making its products available to U.S. shoppers nationwide for the first time. More broadly, the moves are key to GU’s plan to become a more internationally recognized apparel brand.
Shoppers today want to comb the internet for product reviews but also come into stores to try on items, GU executives said. “For customers, it’s seamless, the store and the e-commerce [experience],” Osamu Yunoki, CEO of GU, told Modern Retail in an interview at the New York City store. When GU ran a pop-up in New York City from October 2022 to July 2024, customers kept asking when they could get items online, Yunoki shared. The new rollout is GU’s answer to that request.
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