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Marketing strategy chapter 1
Marketing strategy chapter 1
Marketing strategy in the competitive environment
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1. Introduction In UK, the unseasonal weather in 2014 and 2015 has significantly reduced customers’ cloth purchasing. In such increasingly competitive and overcrowded UK clothing market, UK clothing retailers have utilized promotions to grab market share and shift stock, which eventually result in acceleration in deflation rates (Academic.mintel.com, 2015). In such market background, Marks & Spencer, the biggest UK clothing retailer, recorded a 1.5% drop in their clothing sales, and the market share of M&S continued the decreasing trend from 2006. As shown in figure 1, from 2006 to 2014, M&S’s UK clothing market share dropped 2.2%. Reflected from the lately research and news, in order to gain back market share and further improvement, M&S faces multiple supply chain and logistics problems. Among them, the main three are: 1. Poor performance of agility in M&S’s supply chain. 2. Ethical issues. 3. Poor performance of M&S e-commerce and home delivery. This report will focus on illustrate and approve significance of these three main supply chain and logistics related issues, and carry out practicable solutions to these challenges. Figure 1, Marks & Spencer’s share of spending on clothing and footwear, 2006-14. Adopted from: Academic.mintel.com, 2015. 2. Three main supply chain and …show more content…
For example, in auto motive industry, Penske Logistics help Fords Motor Co. streamline its operations by managing a centralized logistics network (Blanchard, 2015). For M&S, they also can involve 3PL and M&S’s own employees for managing their own UK clothing warehouses. Though such process, not only quick improvement can be achieved, but also warehouse can be modified more professionally and operational experiences can be gained before moving the warehouse operations back in-house. Furthermore, buying a 3PL can also be an
James Cash Penney, founder of JCPenney stores, gained his retail experience working for Golden Rule Mercantile Company, after graduating from high school in 1902. He quickly rose through the ranks as a salesperson, store manager, and partner. In 1906, at the age of 26, he opened his first retail store in Kemmerer, Wyoming the first to become JCPenney store. 1913, he had 34 stores with over $2 million in sales and incorporated JCPenney Company, Inc. JCPenney’s success was due to the popular private-label brand that were good quality, lower prices than the named brands, and these products yielded high profits. In 1927, headquarters opened in New York and in 1929, the company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and store manager/owners traded in their portions of individual stores for stock in the company. JCPenney’s survives the depression, providing basic goods and services at lower prices and increased profits.
Facts of the Case: In 2008, Samantha Elauf applied for a job at Abercrombie & Fitch, Inc., who as part of their “Look Policy” prohibit the use of caps. Elauf, as part of her religious practice, wore a headscarf to the interview. She was interviewed by assistant manager Heather Cooke, who gave her a score that qualified her to be hired. Cooke, however, was worried that Elauf’s headscarf was against the store’s policy and called her district manager Randall Johnson. She informed Johnson of her belief that Elauf wore her headscarf because of her religion, and Johnson replied that headwear whether it was religious or not violated the “Look Policy” of the store. Elauf with the help of the EEOC sued Abercrombie on the grounds of religious discrimination. The U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is an agency established by the government of the United States that imposes federal laws that make it
The global fashion and apparel industry is a giant with annual turnover of approx. $1.7 trillion and provides employment to approx. 75 million people. With globalization and increasing competition amongst manufacturers, coupled with lower production rates in the developing countries, buying clothes has become way inexpensive than before. Add to it the fiercely growing internet penetration and fast catching up ecommerce industry, clothes are more or
My company of choice for this report is Macy 's. 'The Magic of Macy 's ', as the company advertises it, has inspired me to shop there, take advantage of their incomparable discounts and great online shopping experience. Macy 's, Inc. is one of the largest department store chains in the United States of America. Macy 's manages stores under the Macy 's and Bloomingdale 's brands. I enjoy shopping at both of the company 's store brands, Macy 's and Bloomingdales. Bloomingdales provides a more personalized experience
This part of the report will highlight the problems within the external environment that affect Marks and Spencer. Before planning and decision making can take place an organisation must be aware of these issues. The key factors that impact upon all organisations are Political, Economic, Social and Technological. These factors are commonly referred to as PEST factors. Political changes like change of government could affect the minimum wage that M&S workers are paid. Economic factors such as inflation could affect the pricing of garments. The Social factors that would need to be taken into account are lifestyle changes and demographics, M&S would need to consider where their target market stood. Technological advances could also affect M&S sales just recently their website has been updated from a corporate site to a new website offering online buying. Globalisation is a huge environmental factor affecting M&S. Globalisation is the increase in cross-border economic, social and technological exchange. For organisations it increases competition and the search for cost advantages.
Marks & Spencer is one of the UK's foremost retailers of clothing, foods, homeware and financial services, boasting a weekly customer base of 10 million in over 300 UK stores. Marks & Spencer operate in 30 countries worldwide, and has a group turnover in excess of £8 billion. It has specific values, missions and visions. It’s main vision is ‘to be the standard against which all others are measured’, it’s main mission is ‘to make aspirational quality accessible to all’, and it’s main values are quality, service, innovation and trust. (www.marksandspencer.co.uk).
Fast fashion is getting faster and cheaper, but who bares the cost for the rising demand for this type of clothing? Most of the time, the effects are felt in the countries where the brands are not even sold and where they are produced. Consumerism has a lot to do with the success of stores like Uniqlo, Forever 21 and Primark. These types of stores are making fashion accessible to all, and thus trends are becoming more and more short-lived, making people always wanting newer and cheaper items. Inditex, Zara’s parent company, grew its number of store from 500 in 1995 to more than 2500 in 2015. Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) had fewer than 400 stores in 1995, and now has over 3500 (The Economist, 2014). Most of these brand’s clothing items are so inexpensive
The competitive rivalry is high as the industry is comprises of many clothing retailers. For instance, ASDA’s brands George and Matalan, which provide not only quality garments but also sell them in a low price. Primark may lose a significant number of customers due to the intense
Dunnes Stores is an indigenous, family owned Irish Company. The Company is a retailer in both the food and textile market who work around the principle of providing competitive prices, high quality products and a vast variety of choices. The company’s motto of “Better Value” looks to draw in all these principles together.
The United Parcel Service has taken steps to restructure itself from an operations-oriented company into a market driven industry. Recent findings suggested the need to achieve better external customer satisfaction. The steps taken were to improve the overall of all customers that utilize the services at UPS. Other key areas that need improvement are volume logistics and customer logistics. The main priority at UPS is to deliver the package on time. They provide a much-anticipated alternative to the monopoly of the United States Postal Service. This competitor has been unreliable on multiple occasions. The average customer is feed up with the inconsistencies of the United States Postal Service. Unlike this company, the United Parcel Service helped define the word efficiency. Even from the earliest days, when Jim Casey and Claude Ryan, two Seattle teens, gave life to the now world-known UPS delivery company. ”Management is the...
The government forecasts that by 2019, the GDP will rise of 0.2%. The consumer’s behaviour towards this economic recession will change and therefore affect the retail industry. Harrods will need to spend more money and investment in order to float or maintain business sustai...
It is certain that people are getting more used to wasting products that are still reliable to use and, especially in fashion, not that many people are aware of the concept of sustainability. Although concept of recycling paper, plastic and glass has now spread a cross the states, people still doesn’t know how to recycle or reuse their clothing. “65 pounds of clothing and textiles a year are improperly discarded and only an eight of that goes to charities for reuse [1].” This indicates how unaware people are when it comes to taking care of their garments. Or rather, the way in which fast fashion industry promotes the value of cloth is very low, and it is because the fashion industry wants people to get rid of their clothing as soon as possible in order to sell their new colle...
Fashion is an outlet people use to express themselves. People anxiously wait to see what the next trends are as seasons pass by. We buy anything that doesn’t break a bank, people buy a $10 shirt just because it’s cheap and they might not even wear it, but it’s all right, since it wasn’t expensive. As harmless and normal as that scenario sounds, the fashion industry has created the harmful concept that is “fast fashion”, in which stores sell an abundance of extremely cheap trendy clothing and “where deliveries are small and often, with stock delivered twice a week, for instant-access fashion.” (Cochrane)
Although there will not be the ‘exclusivity’ appeal as many copies of an item of clothing is made, the price reduction will attract customers making them strong competitors in the market. Based on the primary resource found, the surveys depicted that majority (7 out of 13 volunteers) found Mr Price to have low prices and high quality items. When asked about Mr Prices strengths 8 out of 13 (61.5%) indicated that affordable clothing was a strength and is the reason they shop there. 3 out of 13 (23.1%) said they were easily
Organisations that are having a hard time in their logistics functions because of increasing competition in the market, high customer service expectation set by a company’s cooperate strategies has shaped for the requirement of outsourced logistics service. Organisations decide to use 3pl so that they have a wider access to enter new and existing markets expansions, to assess market prospects for production an services, to reduce supply chain costs and have expertise to exploit new trends in developing technological advances in supply chain in supply chain management, the need to know whether their product has competitive advantage. Bolumole (2001).