Ann Taylor, like many other fashion retailers, went through a period of decline during the economic recession in 2008 (Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p. 2–1). While many retailers were struggling the National Retail Federation suggested that these businesses try to focus on areas where their performance was lacking and improve those areas rather than immediately closing their doors (p. 2-1).
Ann Taylor specializes in quality clothing for the business minded woman as well as those in high social position (Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p. 2-4). Their mainstay is the “little black dress” called the Ann Taylor, which consequently is how the company got its name (p. 2-4). Ann Taylor’s target market is professional and social elite women between the ages
…show more content…
This strategy, coupled with a hard look at their current pricing, would get their brand-name in front of more consumers.
Implementation
There are a lot of young professional women entering the business world that would be interested in the professional look that Ann Taylor inspires. These young women primarily do their shopping online. They could provide enticements to encourage these online shoppers such as free shipping, paired clothing styles, a basic, interchangeable wardrobe or frequent shopper discounts.
Implementation for an online shopping site is fairly easy. Any reputable web designer could put together a user-friendly site that highlights Ann Taylor’s most collectible pieces. A well-designed website would not only attract the younger business women but it would increase customer loyalty by enabling ease of purchase and help expand their customer base through word-of-mouth. Today’s youth no longer look forward to all day shopping trips. They would rather stay home and shop online where their comfortable. It is the way the world these days.
Recommendations and
The growth of online business has grown enormously over the years. Cliptomania is a family operated and owned small e-business that primarily sells clip on earrings (Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, & Perkins, 2012, p. 308). Cliptomania early developments were very modest, and as such the company experienced copious strategic dilemmas. An initial strategic dilemma that the company encountered when establishing and building their new e-business undertaking was to create a website for the business operations and essentially to have it fully operable. The owners, Jim and Candy elected to hire a vendor to host the website and additionally utilize the IT systems resources of the vendor to sustain their business. At the very beginning they exploited the offerings of the Yahoo Store. However, continuing down this avenue of using the services of the Yahoo Store inevitably became too costly. By using the services and business offerings of a vendor made it convenient and effortless for Jim and Candy to start their e-business store. Unfortunately the couple did not have much in the way of professional help, and so they had to create and put together the website by themselves. Additionally they also had to deal with establishing their online credibility as many customers preferred to call in their orders just to talk with a real person before being comfortable enough to place their orders via the webpage.
... Thus, the firm’s pricing policy should be flexible enough not to discourage the price-sensitive consumers and yet allow the company to sustain ever increasing product and service development costs. Also, mergers and acquisitions could be used by the company to its advantage. That would follow in the footsteps of the CVS recent acquisition of Arbor Drug and Revco and comparable transactions performed by the CVS competitors such as Rite Aid acquiring Marco, Thrifty Payless, and K&B. M&A practices make sense as they reduce competition, increase the customer base, and provide convenient locations for the existing customers.
Berry, Hannah. “The Fashion Industry: Free to Be an Individual.” The Norton Field Guide to
Nordstrom is one of the top retailers in the United States. With a solid brand image and a sound financial situation, Nordstrom is relentless in their expansion in the US, and are beginning to expand into international markets. Nordstrom takes pleasure in providing state of the art client support and having experienced sales people. In order to hold their position as the most successful high-end retailer in the United States, Nordstrom must continue to figure out ways to improve their brand image and customer satisfaction. Nordstrom’s current business working strategy is successful but I believe there are a few ideal solutions that the organization could apply to further enhance the organization. Due to the aggressive characteristics of the fashion retail store market, it is crucial that Nordstrom preserves an aggressive advantage providing the highest level of customer support as possible.
Fashion is important to women; whether it falls under the context of clothing, or how they decorate their home, fashion allows women to express their individuality. With today’s rise in fashion, businesses have to accommodate the demands of consumers by creating shopping strategies that keep the shoppers interested enough to keep coming back. T.J Maxx is one of the many businesses that serve their purpose in helping women achieve their fashion goals. By taking an open floor layout and incorporating it with a mixture between the newest fashion trends and home furniture, T.J Maxx builds an atmosphere that allows women to conveniently purchase quality merchandise for a fraction of the amount they would spend at other shopping stores.
Ann Hopkins filed suit against her former employer Price Waterhouse in District Court in 1984. Hopkins charged Price Waterhouse with gender discrimination during their decision on her partnership validity for the company. In the end the court ruled in favor of Hopkins and they said, “the Policy Board’s decision not to admit the plaintiff to partnership was tainted by discriminatory evaluations that were the the direct result of its failure to address the evident problem of sexual stereotyping in partner’s evaluations.” (Ann Hopkins (B) Case Page 1) It is also important to note that in 1989 the Supreme Court lowered the standards of proof for this case and sent the case back to District Court. With the lower proof standards, the court was again
The ecommerce industry is growing faster than ever. TJ Maxx needs to start focusing more on ecommerce not only to keep up with competition, but also to make sure they do well during weak economic periods. ecommerce, overall, tends to do very well during lackluster economic times. TJ Maxx will be able to cut costs more easily the more they expand their ecommerce business. Our business idea will allow them to expand their ecommerce as we will take over their website and delivery. TJX Companies’ three ecommerce sites accounts for only about 1.0% of the company’s total sales. However, the online channel is a key growth driver and TJX is taking initiatives to improve its online business. The ecommerce sales
“The Cliptomania Web Store” is a case study which analyses the strategic challenges faced by the founders of www.Cliptomania.com. The Santos, Jim and Candy, developed the idea of selling clip on earrings when they discovered an underserved niche in the market place and subsequently established Cliptomania, LLC. When the Santo’s family started the company in 1999 they had little competition and managed to create a stable business with increased growth, despite the investment of little start up cost and a somewhat limited knowledge of the dot.com industry. Although recent profits have decreased significantly, Cliptomania has remained profitable and competitive in the market place.
By the 1980s, just before the rise of Wal-Mart, Kmart had become complacent. It believed it would be the king of discount retailing, now and forever. It didn't perform an accurate SWOT analysis, but to be fair, who could have seen the rise of Wal-Mart to the position of the world's number-one retailer? Still, as Wal-Mart built new stores in town after town, supported by cutthroat pricing and solid logistics, Kmart's complacency would cost them. Part of the problem was that as Wal-Mart was pouring money into information technology (IT), Kmart's IT budget continued to shrink – not just once, but several years in a row. While Wal-Mart's logistics and supply chain management got sharper, Kmart's stagnated. And while Wal-Mart was able to squeeze more value out of its stores and its systems, Kmart lost ground. By the time Kmart had finally decided to start devoting more resources to IT, it was so far behind Wal-Mart that catching up would have been a near-impossible task without the recession in the early part of this decade. With the effects of the recession taken into account, Kmart instead was consigned to also-ran status among discount retailers.
2008 is the year of economic recession in the United States 7.9 million people lost their jobs in the United States (Isidore, 2010) so the demands for purchasing apparel and sports items have decreased much like any other c...
JCPenney is a chain of American mid-range department stores that is based out of Texas that started over 100 years ago. JCPenny has been successful for most of its time up until the last three to four years. The company is trying relentlessly to overcome the lingering effects of the makeover that former CEO, Ron Johnson, had implemented in order for the company to take a new direction in hopes of increasing sales. The new CEO, Myron Ullman, has taken a close look into the markets demographic segmentation along with the income segmentation in order to attempt to return the retailer back to its old self, which is to appeal to middle-market customers. A couple issues of major concern for the company are the dissolving of Johnson’s Boutiques, the price of their products, and overall revenue.
During the last decade, we’ve been to the top of the world—during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s—and back down again, when it all fell apart a few years later. But with the bad came the good: The Web forever changed the business world. The following small-business owners are shining examples of how Web-based technologies can be a businessperson’s best friend.
... this and their marketing strategy will be key if they are to remain viable, grow and compete in the market.
The Internet is rapidly becoming widespread and widely used as a tool for globalization across the world. As the Internet became more easily accessible by most people in the world, the web is bringing significant implications and changes to the way we live, including the way we shop. There is a rapid growth with e-commerce and moving businesses onto the web and retail success is no longer about stores and shopping centers. In developed countries, about two thirds of the population have access to the Internet making the option of online shopping is easily accessible to most people (Valerio). With the ease of shopping in your own home there are many benefits of doing your shopping online. Consumers can easily compare prices online, there is a larger range of products on the web, you can save time by having your shopping delivered right to your doorstep and it also overcomes physical barriers. Over the last decade online shopping has challenged and replaced the traditional means of physically going into shops as the digital world has provided customers with further convenience, flexibility and comfort from shopping from your own home.
The Information revolution is changing our daily lives. With the rapid development of computers and the internet, online commerce has become quite common and plays an important role in the modern world. Online business has been booming in recent years. US online retail sales rose an average of 11% in the first three months of 2009 (“US Online Sales Up,” 2009). The growth of online sales may be due to the growing number of consumers who shop online.