Urban Outfitters, Inc., a lifestyle products and services company, operates a portfolio of global consumer brands.
The company’s primary brands, including the Anthropologie, Free People, FP Movement, Urban Outfitters, and Nuuly brands.
Segments
The company operates under three reportable segments – Retail, Subscription, and Wholesale.
The company’s Retail segment includes its store and digital channels and primarily encompasses its Anthropologie, Free People, FP Movement, and Urban Outfitter...
Urban Outfitters, Inc., a lifestyle products and services company, operates a portfolio of global consumer brands.
The company’s primary brands, including the Anthropologie, Free People, FP Movement, Urban Outfitters, and Nuuly brands.
Segments
The company operates under three reportable segments – Retail, Subscription, and Wholesale.
The company’s Retail segment includes its store and digital channels and primarily encompasses its Anthropologie, Free People, FP Movement, and Urban Outfitters brands. The company’s core strategy is to provide unified environments that establish emotional bonds with the customer, through company-owned stores and franchisee-owned stores. In addition to retail stores, the company offers its products and services directly to its customers through its websites, mobile applications, social media, and third-party digital platforms, catalogs, and customer contact centers.
The company’s Subscription segment includes the Nuuly brand, which primarily offers customers a more sustainable way to explore fashion through a monthly women’s apparel subscription rental service.
The company operates a Wholesale segment under the Free People, FP Movement, and Urban Outfitters brands. The Wholesale segment sells through department and specialty stores worldwide, third-party digital businesses, and its Retail segment. The Wholesale segment primarily designs, develops, and markets young women's contemporary casual apparel, intimates, FP Movement activewear, and shoes under the Free People and FP Movement brands, and the BDG and ‘iets frans’ apparel collections under the Urban Outfitters brand.
The company’s Retail segment omni-channel strategy enhances its customers’ brand experience by providing a seamless approach to the customer shopping experience. All company-owned Retail segment shopping channels are closely integrated, including retail locations, websites, mobile applications, catalogs, and customer contact centers. The company’s investments in areas, such as marketing campaigns and technology advancements are designed to generate demand for the Retail segment omni-channel, and not the separate store or digital channels.
Retail Segment
Anthropologie: The Anthropologie brand tailors its merchandise and inviting store environment to sophisticated and contemporary women aged 28 to 45. The Anthropologie brand’s unique and eclectic internally designed and third-party brand product assortment includes women’s apparel, accessories, intimates, shoes, furniture, home decor, and beauty and wellness. The brand also has a bridal collection consisting of wedding, bridesmaid, and party dresses, accessories, and decor. Catalogs are offered in North America that market select merchandise, most of which is also available in Anthropologie brand stores.
The Terrain brand is designed to appeal to women and men interested in a creative and sophisticated outdoor living and gardening experience. Terrain’s product offering includes lifestyle home, garden, and outdoor living products, antiques, live plants, flowers, wellness products, and accessories.
The company operates various Anthropologie stores, of which some are located in North America and some are located in Europe, and sells merchandise through franchisee-owned stores in the Middle East. Stores average approximately 7,500 square feet of selling space. The company’s stores are located in specialty centers, upscale street locations, and enclosed malls. Anthropologie operates websites and mobile applications in North America and Europe that capture the spirit of its brands by offering a similar yet broader selection of merchandise as found in its stores, and offers catalogs in North America that market select merchandise, most of which is also available in Anthropologie brand stores. The company plans for future digital channel growth to come from expansion domestically and internationally.
Free People: The Free People brand focuses its product offering on private label merchandise targeted to young contemporary women aged 25 to 30 and provides a unique merchandise mix of casual women's apparel, intimates, activewear, shoes, accessories, home products, gifts, and beauty and wellness. Free People brand retail stores average approximately 2,300 square feet of selling space.
The FP Movement brand offers performance-ready activewear, beyond-the-gym staples, and wellness essentials. FP Movement brand retail stores average approximately 1,500 square feet of selling space.
The company operates various Free People stores, of which some are located in North America and some are located in Europe. Of the various Free People stores opened as of January 31, 2025, some were FP Movement brand stores, all located in the United States. The company’s stores are located in enclosed malls, upscale street locations, and specialty centers. The company plans for future store growth to come from expansion domestically and internationally, which may include opening stores in new and existing markets or entering into franchise or joint venture agreements. Free People operates websites and mobile applications in North America and Europe that capture the spirit of its brands by offering a similar yet broader selection of merchandise as found in its stores, as well as substantially all of the Free People and FP Movement brands' wholesale offerings. Free People also offers catalogs that market select merchandise, most of which is also available in its Free People stores. The company plans for future digital channel growth to come from expansion domestically and internationally.
Urban Outfitters: Urban Outfitters targets young adults aged 18 to 28 through a unique merchandise mix, compelling store environment, social media, and third-party digital platforms, websites, and mobile applications. The company has established a reputation with these young adults, who are culturally sophisticated, self-expressive, and actively engaged with their peer group. The product offering includes women’s and men’s fashion apparel, activewear, intimates, footwear, accessories, home goods, electronics, and beauty. A large portion of the company’s merchandise is exclusive to Urban Outfitters, consisting of an assortment of products designed internally or designed in collaboration with third-party brands. Stores average approximately 8,500 square feet of selling space. Urban Outfitters stores are located in street locations in large metropolitan areas and select university communities, specialty centers, and enclosed malls that accommodate the company’s customers’ propensity not only to shop, but also to congregate with their peers.
The company operates various Urban Outfitters stores, of which some are located in North America and some are located in Europe, and sells merchandise through franchisee-owned stores in the Middle East. The company plans for future store openings to be domestic and international, which may include opening stores in new and existing markets or entering into additional franchise or joint venture agreements. Urban Outfitters operates websites and mobile applications in North America and Europe that capture the spirit of the brand by offering a similar yet broader selection of merchandise as found in its stores. The company plans for future digital channel growth to come from expansion domestically and internationally.
Menus & Venues: Menus & Venues focuses on a dining and event experience that provides excellence in food, beverage, and service. The company operates various locations, all of which are located in the United States.
Subscription Segment
The company’s Subscription segment includes the Nuuly brand, which is primarily a monthly women’s apparel subscription rental service. For a monthly fee, Nuuly subscribers can rent products from a wide selection of the company’s own brands, third-party brands, and one-of-a-kind vintage pieces via a custom-built, digital platform. Subscribers select their products each month, wear them as often as they like, and then swap into new products the following month. Subscribers are also able to purchase rental products.
Wholesale Segment
The company’s Wholesale segment includes the Free People, FP Movement, and Urban Outfitters brands. The Wholesale segment was established with the Free People brand to develop, in conjunction with Urban Outfitters, private label apparel lines of young women’s casual wear that could be effectively sold in Urban Outfitters stores and later began selling to department and specialty stores worldwide. The Wholesale segment’s range of young women’s contemporary casual apparel, intimates, FP Movement activewear, and shoes under the Free People and FP Movement brands, and the BDG and ‘iets frans’ apparel collections under the Urban Outfitters brand are sold through department and specialty stores worldwide, including Nordstrom, Dillard’s, Dick's Sporting Goods, digital businesses, and the company’s Retail segment. The company displays its wholesale products in certain department and specialty stores using a shop-within-shop sales model. The company monitors the styles and products that are popular with its wholesale customers to give it insight into fashion trends, helping it to better serve its retail customers. Wholesale sales and showroom facilities are located in Dallas, Los Angeles, London, and New York City.
Store Environment
The company’s Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and Free People stores are primarily located in upscale street locations, free-standing locations, enclosed malls, and specialty centers.
Buying and Design Operations
Maintaining a constant flow of fresh and fashionable merchandise is critically important to the company’s ongoing performance. The company maintains its own buying groups that select and develop products to satisfy its target customers and provide it with the appropriate amount and timing of products offered. The company’s buyers stay in touch with the evolving tastes of their target customers by shopping at major trade markets, attending national and regional trade shows, and staying with mass media influences, including social media, music, video, film, magazines, and pop culture.
The company’s buyers and designers play an important role in its ability to identify and deliver the latest fashion trends to its customers.
Merchandise
The company’s Anthropologie brand product offerings include women’s apparel, accessories, intimates, shoes, furniture, home decor, beauty and wellness, and a bridal collection consisting of wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, party dresses, accessories, and decor. The company’s Terrain brand product offerings include lifestyle home, garden, and outdoor living products, antiques, live plants, flowers, wellness products, and accessories. The company’s Free People brand offers a showcase for casual women’s apparel, intimates, FP Movement activewear, shoes, accessories, home products, gifts, and beauty and wellness. The company’s FP Movement brand offers performance-ready activewear, beyond-the-gym staples, and wellness essentials. The company’s Urban Outfitters brand offers a wide array of eclectic merchandise, including women’s and men’s fashion apparel, activewear, intimates, footwear, accessories, home goods, electronics, and beauty. The company’s Nuuly brand allows subscribers to rent products from a wide selection of the company’s own brands, third-party brands, and one-of-a-kind vintage pieces. The company’s merchandise is continuously updated to appeal to the company’s target customers’ changing tastes and is supplied by a large number of domestic and foreign vendors, with new shipments of merchandise arriving at its stores and fulfillment centers almost daily.
The wide breadth of merchandise offered by the company’s brands includes a combination of national third-party brands, private label products designed in collaboration with third-party brands, and exclusive merchandise developed and designed internally by its brands. This combination allows the company to offer fashionable merchandise and to differentiate its product mix from that of traditional department stores, as well as that of other specialty and digital retailers.
The ever-changing mix of products available to the company’s customers allows it to adapt its merchandise to prevailing fashion trends, and together with the inviting atmosphere and experience of the company’s stores, social media, and third-party digital platforms, websites, and mobile applications encourages its core customers to visit its shopping channels frequently.
The company selects price points for its merchandise that are consistent with the spending patterns of the company’s target customers. As such, the company’s stores carry merchandise at a wide range of price points that may vary considerably within product categories.
Store Operations
The company has organized its retail store operations by brand into geographic areas or districts that each have a district leader. District leaders are responsible for several stores and monitor and supervise individual store leaders. Each store leader is responsible for overseeing the daily operations of one of the company’s stores. In addition to a store leader, the staff of a store can include a combination of some or all of the following positions: a visual merchandising manager, several department managers, and full and part-time sales and visual staff.
Marketing and Promotion
The company has highly effective marketing tools in its websites, mobile applications, catalogs, email campaigns, and social media and third-party digital platforms. The company is also active in social media and third-party digital platforms.
Customer Loyalty Programs
Loyalty programs offer customers access to member-only benefits and rewards, which promote brand loyalty. The Urban Outfitters brand offers UO Rewards, a customer loyalty program designed to create authentic, lasting relationships with customers by rewarding devoted members with reward coupons, giveaways, early access to products and sales, and exclusive offers. Members can earn and accumulate points based on purchase activity and engaging with the brand through social media. Upon reaching the specified point threshold, members are issued a reward coupon that can be redeemed for both in-store and online purchases.
The Anthropologie brand offers AnthroPerks. AnthroPerks is a customer loyalty program that is designed to deliver benefits and experiences to help make the company’s customers’ shopping journey in-store and online easier and more inspirational. Members are given birthday discounts, receipt-free returns, special promotions, early access to new arrivals, and invitations to members-only events.
Company Operations
Distribution: The company operates multiple distribution and fulfillment centers worldwide to support the company’s Retail, Subscription, and Wholesale segments in North America and Europe.
Retail Segment
The company’s Retail segment distribution and fulfillment centers receive and distribute its retail store merchandise and fulfill catalog, website, and mobile application orders around the world. The primary Retail segment facilities that support its North America Retail segment operations are as follows: a 1,000,000 square foot omni-channel fulfillment center the company owns in Gap, Pennsylvania; a 291,000 square foot distribution center the company owns in Gap, Pennsylvania; a 956,000 square foot omni-channel fulfillment center the company owns in Indiana, Pennsylvania; an 880,000 square foot omni-channel fulfillment center the company owns in Kansas City, Kansas; a 463,000 square foot fulfillment center the company owns in Reno, Nevada; and a 214,500 square foot distribution center the company leases in Reno, Nevada.
The company’s European Retail segment operations are supported by a 400,000 square foot omni-channel fulfillment center the company owns in Peterborough, England.
Additionally, in fiscal 2025, the company began utilizing a third-party logistics provider in the Netherlands to receive and distribute merchandise.
Subscription Segment
The company’s Subscription segment operations are supported by the following facilities that fulfill subscription rental orders for the Nuuly brand: a 604,000 square foot fulfillment center the company leases in Raymore, Missouri, which commenced operations in the first quarter of fiscal 2025. The company also leases 421,000 square feet of adjacent space within this facility through the end of fiscal 2026; and a 309,000 square foot fulfillment center the company leases in Bristol, Pennsylvania.
Wholesale Segment
The company’s Wholesale segment operations are predominantly supported by its omni-channel fulfillment centers in Gap, Pennsylvania, and Peterborough, England.
Information Systems: The company recognizes the need for high-quality information to manage merchandise planning, buying, inventory management, and control functions and has therefore invested in a retail software package that meets the company’s processing and reporting requirements. The company’s Retail segment utilizes point-of-sale register systems connected by a secure data network to its home offices. Additionally, the company’s stores have mobile point-of-sale devices that have virtually the same functionality as its cash registers. These systems provide for register efficiencies, timely customer checkout, and instant back office access to register information, as well as daily updates of sales, inventory data, and price changes. The company’s digital channel, which includes its websites, mobile applications, and catalogs, maintains separate software systems that manage the merchandise and customer information for its customer contact centers and fulfillment functions. The company’s Subscription segment uses a custom-built digital platform that helps it manage merchandising functions, customer information and service, financial accounting, and fulfillment of customer orders. The company’s Wholesale segment uses a separate software system for customer service, order entry, production planning, and inventory management. The company has also invested in data science, advanced analytics, and marketing technologies to enhance customer insights, optimize inventory decisions, and improve digital engagement. The company hosts digital and business applications across cloud infrastructure as well as has its own fully redundant data centers, located at the company’s home offices in the Philadelphia Navy Yard and at its Reno fulfillment center. All systems are fully redundant and have full disaster recovery plans either within its cloud providers or its own data centers.
Trademarks and Service Marks
The company is the registered owner in the United States of certain service marks and trademarks, including, but not limited to ‘Urban Outfitters,’ ‘Anthropologie,’ ‘Free People,’ ‘Terrain,’ ‘BDG,’ ‘FP Movement,’ ‘Nuuly,’ and ‘URBN.’ In addition, the company currently has pending applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register certain other marks. The company also owns marks that have been registered in foreign countries, and has applications for marks pending in additional foreign countries.
Seasonality
The company’s business is subject to seasonal fluctuations in net sales and net income, with a more significant portion of net sales typically realized in the second half of each year (year ended January 31, 2025), predominantly due to the year-end holiday period. Historically, and consistent with the retail industry, this seasonality also impacts the company’s working capital requirements, particularly with regard to inventory.
History
Urban Outfitters, Inc. was founded in 1970. The company was incorporated in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1976.
