River Island pulls all plus size items from its stores and people are fuming
7 November 2018, 15:16 | Updated: 15 November 2018, 15:16
River Island will now sell their plus size clothing online.
River Island – who have stores in the Middle East, Europe, South America as well as in the UK – removed their plus size range, RI Plus, from its stores. RI Plus launched in 2016 and sells clothing from sizes 18 to 28. Wide fit shoes are also included in the range.
The full RI Plus range will now only be available online after the clothing brand discovered that the majority of their sales come from online shoppers. However, there's limited plus size clothing in stores as it is and as one of the most well-known brands on the high street they shouldn't really be alienating plus size shoppers.
"After 18 months in both stores and online we found the vast majority of sales (average 85-90%) were online and we found that this was in line with market – that more and more shoppers are migrating to online shopping to have the options to try on at home," River Island told Cosmopolitan. "Making RI PLUS online only has given us the freedom to stock more lines and increase our rate of newness to give the customer more of what she wants faster than ever before."
Unsurprisingly, the move didn't go down well with River Island customers either. In fact, people were absolutely fuming about it and even thought it might be a publicity stunt.
How discriminative 😡
— Helen tinkler (@Helentinkler5) November 6, 2018
River Island has removed plus size clothing from all its stores https://t.co/SbPG9r1ljb
What a load of bull. If I'd KNOWN River Island had a designated plus size range, I might have tried it on for size in store and purchased an item or two
— pollyblossom (@bootbutton) November 7, 2018
Since it wasn't appropriately publicised, &I have no idea how it sizes up, they ain't ever getting any sales from me, now! https://t.co/2B4xHXZw1W
So was it a publicity stunt to begin with or was it just a bad investment?
— ᕙ(◕ਊ◕)ᕗ Bernard's Keeper 🎮 (@Trollope91) November 6, 2018
I'm gonna guess both
River Island has removed plus size clothing from all its storeshttps://t.co/lpaQphLJNW
Amused, River Island has removed its plus-size fashion from all its stores..well advice to their Marketing Muppets.. .if anyone knew you had such a range we might have shopped there!!!!
— Clare Janet Mason (@ClareJanetMason) November 6, 2018
This is hardly surprising considering #riverisland standard response for any plus size range enquiries has been ”its all on our website” long before this! Just shows what little value they place in their plus sized customers! #plussizeclothing https://t.co/4ukIxMbhU8
— Nikki Long (@Nikki_L87) November 6, 2018
The plus size clothing market is booming and even surpassing general fashion, but actually finding the clothes is still a challenge. Why?! Some plus size shoppers online complained that the RI Plus range wasn't plugged like the main one, which has ultimately led to its downfall.
Others noted the range was always shoved in the back corner of the shop. Giving plus size shoppers the choice to only buy clothing online sounds a little discriminatory and is definitely a step in the wrong direction.
