Spanish fashion retailer Mango is moving into a prime Henry Street location in Dublin. The franchisee for the trendy young women's label will shortly commence fit-out, having paid key money of £200,000 (€253,950) to acquire the leasehold interest in the former Principles store at the Jervis Street Centre.
Sabline Limited, the company holding the franchise, will pay an annual rent of £365,000 (€463,454) for 3,500 sq ft at ground floor level and a further 7,500 sq ft on the first floor.
The two-storey Principles store closed down after Christmas amid much speculation about the future of parent group Arcadia, following the closure of more than 200 of its stores across the UK. In addition to the Principles outlet, Arcadia also operates Topshop/Topman, Dorothy Perkins and Burtons Menswear in the Jervis Street Centre. However, Principles, which first opened in November 1999, is the only one to close. It apparently found the 11,000 sq ft of space far too much after it discontinued selling its menswear collection.
This store occupies a prime location both on Henry Street and in the Jervis Centre. The Jervis Centre remains one of the best retail locations in Dublin city centre. Along with anchor tenant Debenhams, there are a variety of fashion, sport, housewares and other retailers. Fintan Tierney of Lambert Smith Hampton handled the assignment of the Principles lease to Mango.
Building on the success to date of the trendy womenswear label Mango in the Irish market, Sabline Limited (trading as Mango) plans to quadruple the number of stores here over the next few years. Currently there are two Irish Mango stores in Dublin, the first one in Arnott's on Henry Street (due to close and switch to the Jervis Centre location) and the second at Liffey Valley shopping centre.
A third Dublin store will open in the new Swords Pavilions shopping centre in the next few weeks. Stores in Cork, Galway and Belfast are all in the pipeline, along with a much sought-after Grafton Street-area retail location. The company is also to concentrate on acquiring larger premises in prime leisure-shopping, out-of-town locations.
First introduced to Ireland in 1998, Sabline Limited - a consortium made up of former BDO Simpson Xavier accountant Paddy MacSweeney, Norman Taylor, formerly of Dunnes Stores, and property developer Hugh McGivern of McGivern Flynn Insurance - controls the franchise for Ireland (including Northern Ireland) and aims to have 12 stores by 2005/6.
Selling trendy clothes and accessories at affordable prices is a business ethos that has made Mango a success with Irish shoppers. The Spanish franchise retailers create a fashion range for the modern urban woman for work, play and special occasions - from denim jeans to pin-stripe suits to sassy sequined evening dresses.
The shop opening in Swords will have 7,300 sq ft of dedicated fashion retail space. Norman Taylor of Sabline Limited says that in the future the group will only be looking to lease premises if this volume of space is available.
Mango supplies the stock while the franchisee covers the day-to-day costs, paying for stock sold minus a percentage of sales. Left-over stock is returned at the end of the season at no cost.
According to Norman Taylor, the Irish franchisee is confident of success in the market-place, as young Irish women are already very familiar with the Mango label from holidays abroad. Figures from holiday industry sources show that some 265,000 Irish holiday-makers travel to Spain, Portugal, the Balearics and the Canary Islands annually, some 65 per cent of whom are females in the 18-to-30 age bracket.
"Here they would have come across the big Spanish labels, Zara and Mango, and would probably have bought some of those clothes on holidays. We knew there would be a readymade market, especially as this is a British fashion dominated market. Being a Spanish company, Mango also has the advantage of being in the euro zone with fixed exchange rates; that's not the case with the British stores, where the clothes have become more expensive for Irish shoppers," Taylor says.
The technology employed by Mango is what allows the stores to operate effectively in an international market. Stock is automatically recorded as it is sold, so the Barcelona office can then instantly replace the fast-moving items.
