Skip to main content
BoF Logo

Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.

Case Study | How to Build a Customer-Centric Brand

For 50 years, Urban Outfitters has managed to ride the waves of mid-priced apparel retail without succumbing to the steady decline of its competitors. The key to the success of its brand stable — which also includes Anthropologie, Free People and Nuuly — is the company’s belief that the customer should define the product mix, not the merchant.
How to Build a Customer-Centric Brand
How to Build a Customer-Centric Brand (BoF)
Loading...

By the end of 2020, the American mall was in shambles. An outcome 40 years in the making, many venerable retailers had filed for bankruptcy (Neiman Marcus, J.Crew, Brooks Brothers, J.C. Penney) or experienced further setbacks that set them on a steeper decline that could still take years to play out (

Please sign in to ensure you can read our agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice. Or get in touch at support@businessoffashion.com if you experience difficulties.

Loading...

© 2026 The Business of Fashion. All rights reserved. For more information read our Terms & Conditions

More from Retail
Analysis and advice from the front lines of the retail transformation.

The Industry That Eats Its Young

Small fashion labels have always been shortchanged by their wholesale partners. A wave of high-profile bankruptcies has turned a structural injustice into an existential crisis. There is a better way to do business, writes Imran Amed.


The Zara-Fication of John Galliano

Fashion’s enfant terrible is trading exclusivity for the mass market. Is it the ultimate fashion coup, or the final surrender of prestige?


view more
Latest News & Analysis
Unrivalled, world class journalism across fashion, luxury and beauty industries.

The Industry That Eats Its Young

Small fashion labels have always been shortchanged by their wholesale partners. A wave of high-profile bankruptcies has turned a structural injustice into an existential crisis. There is a better way to do business, writes Imran Amed.


The Zara-Fication of John Galliano

Fashion’s enfant terrible is trading exclusivity for the mass market. Is it the ultimate fashion coup, or the final surrender of prestige?


The Impact of War on Fashion’s Supply Chain

Textile hubs are already feeling the cascading risks of the conflict in Iran as Washington ramps up forced labour probes to revive tariffs, while decarbonisation in fashion’s factories might finally have a standard to go off of.


VIEW MORE
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
CONNECT WITH US ON