Sunday, November 30, 2008

My First Trip to an Anthropologie Clothes Store

By Smruti Evans

Urban Outfitters seems to be a popular name in retailing, but it wasn't until last week that I was introduced to Anthropologie. If you haven't heard, seen, or been in an Anthropologie store, you are missing an experience, I kid you not.

After visiting the store, I dug up some numbers that shocked me. Here's one that really left an impression: the typical Anthropologie customer spends eighty minutes in the store per visit. Eighty -- that's one and a third hours on each visit. How much time do you think the average customer spends with other retailers? Fifteen minutes. That's an amazing number that should convey loads about the feel of the stores.

Anthropologie was formed to capitalize on patrons of the Urban Outfitters chain who outgrew UA's fashions. As such, the target customer for Anthropologie clothing is a 30 to 40'ish sophisticated woman with high disposable income. Not a bad niche to target!

Ask ten women what they think of Anthropologie and you'll likely get . . . one opinion! Almost unanimously, people love the store, but aren't crazy about the prices. Granted, they are high, but for good reason. Anthropologie is extremely selective and exclusive with their clothing lines, and just about everything you find in a store is a limited edition run. Heck, they even have a good number of one-of-a-kind pieces!

These items tend to fly off of the shelves, leaving oddball items scattered about, but that leads to an opportunity for shoppers: namely, sales racks. There are quite a few discounted items if you're not against searching, which I'm sure contributes to the long shopping visits.

What impresses me the most about Anthropologie clothes is the distinctive styling. Their fashions include a lot of floral prints, laces, and velvets, but look classy and sophisticated at the same time. The feeling that I get is that it's a clothing line for beautiful women who don't want to reveal half of their bodies to look sexy. Touchdown, I'd say.

If you're really looking for a deal, you can find discount Anthropologie clothing online - not through the Anthropologie store, but through other retailers. I can't imagine that these items are wholesale, and with the high turnover in clothing, I don't think it's made up of last season's items either, but the price is attractive!

Bottom line: if you haven't yet shopped in an Anthropologie store, determine if there's one in the vicinity. It really is a great shopping experience. But beware of the prices!

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