Canada-based womenswear company Aritzia is strategically positioned in the global fashion landscape (above discount, fast fashion and mid-market and a little below sub-luxury and luxury) and calls itself an everyday luxury extensive portfolio of exclusive brands. Aritzia primarily presents itself as a design house with an innovative global platform.
Founded in 1984, the company is available in 200+ countries through its website aritzia.com and in 117+ boutiques throughout North America, it offers more than 20 apparel products for women in both knits and woven. For some of the products, the price is even more than US $ 350.
Aritzia’s in-house brands include Babaton, Denim Forum, Little Moon, Sunday Best, Ten, The Group, Tna, Wilfred, Contour, Seamless, Sweatfleece, The Effortless Pant™, Super PuffTM and Golden (launched recently).
Every brand has a specialisation of its own such as Denim Forum is about premium denim with iconic influence while Golden is oriented towards activewear in high-performing fabrics. Little Moon is all about expressive silhouettes and natural fabrics, Ten is for eveningwear and The Super PuffTM is constructed with hyper-functional fabric and forward-thinking tech specs.
Why Aritzia
For fiscal 2023, the company delivered US $ 2.2 billion in annual net revenue, with both Canada and the US garnering over US $ 1 billion in sales. In the third quarter of fiscal 2024, it reported a 4.6 per cent increase in net revenue to US $ 653.5 million, up from US $ 624.6 million in Q3 of FY ’23.
The company is on a continuous growth track as three years ago, the gross profit of this specialty retailer increased by 34.9 per cent to US $ 242.2 million, compared to US $ 179.5 million in Q4 of 2022. It accelerated its product expansion strategy for men through a definitive agreement to acquire Canada-based Reigning Champ, a leading designer and manufacturer of premium athleticwear.
In the last five years, the company has doubled its style count and shown multi-fold growth.
As per Jennifer Wong, CEO of the company, it is also accelerating its real estate expansion strategy into fiscal 2025 and diligently working to increase e-commerce momentum through strategic investments in leadership, digital marketing
and technology.
| Its products are expensive resulting in a limited customer base. Even large dependency on timely raw material imports from Japan, China, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan are issues creating challenges in its supply chain. |
The company has identified over 100 locations in the US and plans to open approximately 8–10 new US boutiques annually through FY 2027 besides expanding 3–5 boutiques also on an annual basis, raising the total boutique count to approximately 150 and increasing total retail square footage by up to 60 per cent by FY ’27.
That’s not all! Artizia is all set to reach a target of US $ 3.5–3.8 billion in net revenue by FY 2027.
Huge range of fabrics
As the company’s product offerings are vast, ranging from seamless to denimwear, partywear, activewear, etc., it uses a variety of fabrics that include 100 per cent cotton, PC blend, blend of nylon and elastane, 100 per cent polyamide-water-repellent and wind-resistant. The majority of its raw materials and merchandise are sourced from various suppliers in Asia and Europe.
As per the details given on the company’s website, Aritzia sources finished goods from China (38 per cent), Vietnam (17 per cent), Sri Lanka (15 per cent), India (6 per cent) and 10 other countries.
Currently, it is not sourcing from Bangladesh but as the company has a product range which is also the strength of Bangladesh and is focused on sustainability, there are sufficient reasons why Bangladesh should consider working with Aritzia.
