Uniqlo's move into Glasgow is a very big deal for the city, which has not had its troubles to seek and has faced far more challenges than Edinburgh, writes Business Editor Ian McConnell.

When I spoke to the man leading Uniqlo’s UK expansion in the spring of last year, just ahead of the Japanese fashion brand opening a store in Edinburgh, he declined to be drawn on whether Glasgow was also on the radar.

It certainly seemed like a possibility, taking into account population and so on.

However, Uniqlo UK chief operating officer Alessandro Dudech was giving nothing away.

In the exclusive interview with The Herald in April last year, he described the store in Edinburgh as close to his heart and expressed excitement about expanding into a “new country”.

And there was certainly much excitement around the opening of the outlet in the Scottish capital.

A launch party at the store the night before the opening, for invited guests including selected “influencers” as is the way of things these days, created quite the stir not just on social media but outside the shop as passers-by, including tourists, became curious about what was going on.

Uniqlo has been in the UK since the opening decade of the millennium, so it took a long time to come to Scotland in the form of bricks and mortar with its Edinburgh debut.

And the Edinburgh store opening was certainly noteworthy, of course because a major international fashion name was setting up shop in Scotland for the first time but also because the Japanese designer and retailer chose Princes Street, which has not been without its........

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