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Comment by chrisstu | Hacker News Reader

I'd say things have been heading south for Gap UK shops for the last 10 years and accelerated recently. They have been on a downward quality path for a long time with no apparent strategy. Every time you go back, they have different ranges, so no repeat purchases are even possible. Found something you like and want to buy again? Tough. And the quality got progressively worse. For basics like jeans and t-shirts, I switched to H&M and Muji about 5 years ago. I suspect we will lose Muji soon as well though.

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I don't buy clothes at Muji but every time I've needed some of the home stuff from the Angel one it's been packed.

Ah, a fellow Islington local! I agree Muji is popular, but call it my retail 6th sense. Nice places like that just don't seem to survive in the UK. The retail market seems quite segmented into dirt cheap rubbish and ultra high end. The middle ground has been decimated, Gap being another example.

Gap's quality is higher than H&M, IMHO. Zara is another of Gap's rivals that seems to be expanding in the UK highstreet, although I rarely find anything worth purchasing.

Inditex (Zara) is a juggernaut compared with Gap or Primark. The differences in scale of operations, targeting, and branding are massive. It is like comparing AWS with Cloudera.

I find the rapid store expansion a problem and wouldn't be surprised if they repeat the same mistake, although they haven't plastered their clothes with Zara logos.

Uniqlo is the only store that hasn't yet repeated this mistake.

Inditex has revenue of about $23 billion, Gap is around $16 billion, Primark is around $8 billion. They're not as far apart as you think.

Zara always has queues when I see it, but my wife tells me the quality of everything she's bought from there has been dismally poor, especially given their relatively high prices. Usually the issues she's described are around the quality of the work and not the material, seams falling apart, buttons and accessories falling off etc.

Why do you think we'll lose Muji?

Presumably you've tried UniQlo too?

I base the Muji prediction on their hopeless online presence, frequently changing stock items, the lack of customers in the clothing section and my experience with other UK retailers. I hope I'm wrong.

I've tried UniQlo but so far have been unable to find an item I want to buy in there. I seem to recall on a recent visit that their winter coats have goose down, which I avoid.

> I base the Muji prediction on their hopeless online presence

Isn't that "A Thing" with Japanese companies? :)

Well, as long as their retail stores don't all disappear, I'm ok - I don't much like shopping for stuff like thay sell online.

Muji is very very very late to online purchase. Mostly because of their attitude that customer should go to the store and see the product first.

But that is changing, my guess is that UK is lower down on the list for those upgrade. I mean those online improvement only started with Japan and China in the last few years.

I like Uniqlo these days. But they don't have a shop near me which is a big shame

>I suspect we will lose Muji soon as well though.

why?

Muji basically shut down in the US.

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