Lululemon Athletic Inc. (Lululemon) is a retail company that specializes in athletic yoga-inspired apparel for active men and woman. This company is headquartered in Canada and was founded in 1998 by Dennis Wilson. Wilson’s passion was technical athletics which resulted in him opening a studio to design yoga clothing in 2000 in Vancouver. To help pay his rent, Wilson held yoga classes at night when the design studio wasn’t being utilized. By 2011, Lululemon’s yoga apparel was being sold in over 130 stores located throughout Canada, United States and Australia. With much success expanding into a global market, Lululemon’s vision was to evaluate the world from mediocrity to greatness. To achieve this vision, a strategy was developed with
Offering special products is marked under strengths and opportunity; however, long term sustainability must ease the weaknesses and threats posed by competitors and external markets forces. However, they are several other strengths of this company that outweigh the weaknesses but can easily be threatened. Lululemon has a great brand equity and knowledge in the market which has helped them development a customer loyalty. While Lululemon’s strengths is challenging, limiting their products to a special market, with higher than normal prices opens the markets for competitors. Lululemon has several weaknesses, they only offer a specialty product and it mostly aimed to attract woman. The company’s profitability has decreased over the recent years, showing the necessity for Lululemon to sustain its economic growth through product diversification and geographical expansion. Many of their competitors have grown, mostly likely due to their global growth and divarication. If Lululemon would expand their market growth this would open up so much more opportunity for this company to grow. One of their weaknesses is there is the dependence on suppliers. This opens a great opportunity for Lululemon, right now they are heavily relying on suppliers around the world and they do not have their own manufacturing facilities. This is causing the company to spend more money of vendors to
Lululemon was able to corner the market in a market driven business, which has strengthens and weaknesses to consider. This company could benefit from more aggressive advertising because they have such great brand recognition and consumer loyalty. With the retail market changing and more competitors entering the market, Lululemon needs to stay competitive and offer a broader spectrum of products and expand their markets into areas they already have great brand recognition. Lululemon takes pride is offering a high quality product and this company changed the way the world sees yoga appeal today. In very recent years yoga has become a popular sport and the consumers today want to look stylish while doing so and this company offers the rights products to do
Lululemon is an athletic company that is in the clothing industry and more specifically in the retail sector of the economy. The clothing industry is a multi-million dollar industry that is devoted to the making and selling products for consumers to wear. Lululemon produces various athletic attire for both men and women including exercise...
As this consumer group is very interconnected through their passion for fitness and yoga, they also have a shared passion for promoting a healthy, happy, active lifestyle. These consumers also heavily identify with the main point of Lululemon’s manifesto. Lululemon’s public declaration of its policy and aims consists of phrases such as: “The pursuit of happiness is the source of unhappiness”, “friends are more important than money”, and “sweat once a day to regenerate your skin.” (Lululemon Manifesto) Many of these “trendy urban” consumers would identify as a “yogi”, otherwise known as a, “person who is proficient in yoga.” (Google Definition) Their interests and values are consistent with Lululemon’s vision: “a place where people could get a sweat in, we wanted to create a community hub where people could learn and discuss the physical aspects of healthy living, mindfulness, and living a life of possibility.” (Lululemon
The UK is a growth market for Victoria's Secret. In 2012, Victoria's Secret opened the first and flagship store on Westfield and new bond street. After that Victoria's secret expanded rapidly in the UK, 10 stores have been opened at the end of January 2015 (L Brand Annual Report, 2015). In London market, Victoria's Secret owned 4 stores (Victoria's secret, 2016).
Founded by Chip Wilson in 1998, Lululemon opened a new business, which mainly provide athletic wear for women yogis. The company focused on community interaction, where yoga lovers can share their physical and mental living styles to fulfill a healthy life. The original vision of Lululemon is “ to elevate the world from mediocrity to greatness by embracing social, environmental and economic health in every part of our organization and global communities.” Lululemon was attractive to a large number of yoga lovers. However, in March 2013, the company suffered from quality control that was 17% of its popular black Luon pants (sold for roughly $100 each) had problems with sheerness. After several months, two window displays disappointed
Since 1998, Lululemon has transformed the way people dress to workout. Through innovative products and technical athletic fabrics, a brand was created to provide clothing for workouts such as yoga, running and cycling. Lululemon opened its first store in Vancouver in 2000 with the plan to have the store be a community hub for people to learn and discuss their physical fitness and overall health goals. As Lululemon was more than a store to provide products for consumers, their goal was to influence every person who walked into the store. A basic criterion for investment is Lululemon’s mission to create components for people to live longer, healthier, fun lives. All Lululemon locations maintain strong relationships with local communities and host in-store events such as complimentary yoga classes and goal-setting workshops.
The marketing mix is often crucial when determining a product or brand's offer, and is often associated with the four P's: place, promotion, product and price. UA’s four P’s match their target market perfectly. UA uses an ease of reach approach in placing its products. You can purchase items in stores or online, prices being somewhat cheaper than the competition but surely providing a deal for its consumers for the quality and performance given for their dollar. UA has also expanded into brand stores which provide another offering to consumers. The company uses a targeted market approach to save expenses related to extensive research. Its well defined target markets include the Hispanic market which has exceeds all ethnicities for its interest in fitness wear. Its international expansion is helping place its products within easy reach of buyers throughout the world.
The Positioning statement of Nike is “For serious athletes, Nike gives confidence that provides the perfect shoe for every sport”. In today’s competitive environment, Nike, one of the global leaders in sporting goods industry, has established a strong position for enhancing athletic life style. It’s the number one sports manufacturer in the world design by Nolan Breitbarth in the 1970s with Phil knight founder of Nike Inc. It is the leading sporting goods Company in the United States and hundred and ten countries. However, it has become the passion for everyone to use its brand products that create the
Instead of trying to persuade customers to buy what the LA Fitness has already produced, the marketing department has decided to produce a product for families not just individuals. The corporation has decided to do this through research. Consumer needs and wants became the firm's primary focus. This consumer-orientated marke...
The corporation should invest more money in research and innovation since this is what has helped them to make a product that rivals their competitors. At the same time, it is imperative for them to improve their machinery for cheap labor costs which will help the company increase its production allowing it to meet the demand in the market. By improving production leading to lower costs of making shoes, apparel, and equipment, Nike will achieve higher demand assuming a quality product is maintained in that process. They will stand a better chance of competing in the industry (Hill, 2009). The organization is already in a better position for meeting the demand, customer taste, and needs. The company should improve quality by focusing on developing lightweight products that are more durable compared to those offered by the competitors. Also, Nike can keep up their success by continuing to reinvent and improve their items and continue to meet the current demand by using new technology. It can also use the Internet to communicate with consumers (Hill, 2009). By developing new technology, Nike will allow the customers to suggest and design their shoes online. To achieve this goal, it is fundamental to enhance areas such as their website to make it more user-friendly. Finally, the company should pay attention to small startup organizations that enter the
C-79). The company is also offering products and apparel intended for other healthy and athletic lifestyle pastimes rather than solely for yoga. These include swimwear, which were introduce for women in fiscal 2013 and men in the spring of 2014, dance apparel through its ivivva brand, as well as expected golf and tennis products (Thompson, 2014, p. C-80). Additionally, Lululemon offers such products as gear bags, water bottles, caps, gloves, headbands, and socks. This supports the company’s core component to “broaden the lululemon product line beyond yoga, running, and general fitness (specifically swimming, golf, and tennis) and include offerings for both males and females of many ages” (Thompson, 2014, p. C-79) for its fiscal 2014 business strategy. This indicates that the senior administrators of Lululemon have been transitioning the company’s competitive strategy from having a narrow market focus just on yoga
From its humble beginning in Dublin 1969, Primark, under the trading name of Penneys in Ireland, has fast become a fashion sensation with 270 stores spreading across the nine European countries. Owned by Associated British Foods, Primark has come a long way in Europe by establishing themselves as a high street brand with a potent dose of affordable and fashionable clothes that greatly appeals to Men, Women and Teenagers alike.
In reviewing the case of New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. it is clear that there are a few major problems that the company is facing. First of all, New Balance falls behind its other major competitors, Nike, Adidas and Reebok, in the area of marketing. Unlike its competitors, New Balance does not undertake celebrity endorsements. This puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to brand building. This also causes the company to lose out somewhat on gaining awareness on a global scale as it lacks endorsements in major sporting events. Most global brand names generate strong brand recognition through celebrity endorsements in sporting events that would give them the needed momentum to carry their brand name further into the global market.
Nike’s focus for fashion forward women is the following: lead the athleisure trend, increase advertising, and the introduce the #BetterForIt social media campaign. We need to focus on the athleisure trend by increasing our portfolio for the women target market. Athleisure is already 20% of the firm’s revenue and we need to recognize that women are leading this fashion movement. Under Armor and Lululemon are already making headways in this fashion focused market. We need to emphasize our athletic technologies, promoting lighter fabrics and better performance, while still maintaining a level of comfort and fashionability. Increasing the portfolio means nothing if women don’t know we’ve done just that. Nike will need to increase advertising specifically with this target market in mind. The #BetterForIt campaign is one important aspect of these advertising efforts. Similar campaigns should promote and help “normalize” athletic wear in everyday
By continuously refining its SPA model, UNIQLO differentiates itself with its unique, original products and low costs. Its consolidated supply chain facilitates quick alteration in production, rapid response to changes in the sales environment, and minimizes store-operation costs. UNIQLO’s business model also upturned the trend with large-scale stores in the apparel industry. Typically, with increase in sales floor area, sales and profitability per square meter decreases. However, UNIQLO is able to promote sales and reduce costs with its rich product mix, particularly for women.
Charles & Keith, a well-recognized women’s footwear brand was established in 1996 in Singapore Amara shopping centre by the two young brothers, Charles Wong and Keith Wong. The company began its foreign market venture in 2000. To date, Charles and Keith has a presence in more than 20 major cities around the world. The brand are well-known internationally today with the vision “to be the most admired fashion-forward company” and the mission “to offer high quality products and services, with a commitment to perfection” in mind all the time (Charles & Keith, 2013).