External & Global Environment of Louis Vuitton in Japan Case Study Analysis

This expansion demonstrates how the luxury industry is now run by massive corporations whose focus is only on growth, visibility, brand awareness, advertising, and most importantly, PROFITS! With growth and expansion, has come a decrease in quality and rarity. The luxury garments produced are mostly not handmade but are even outsourced to large factories in places such as China and Turkey. Also, to meet quarterly turnover projections, “designers churn(ed) out increasingly trendy collections of clothes, handbags, and shoes.” (Thomas, Pg. 246) With hundreds of new stores around the globe the surplus of designer labeled merchandise is immense hence, the proliferation of outlet malls.

For years, Louis Vuitton enjoyed high profit margins from the luxury market in Japan until other competitors such as Prada and Gucci entered the market. Counterfeiting also became a threat to the firm’s brand by satisfying consumer demand at lower prices. Other external global environmental problems included highly priced products, limited availability in stores only, and a heavy dependency on the Japanese market (Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p. 14-18). Moreover, “the after-shocks of the global recession were a threat to Louis Vuitton’s luxury business in Japan”, and Japanese women became less interested in the brand’s products (Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p. 14-18). Alternatively, Louis Vuitton could “reinvent itself and regain what used to be its well-attested

Meanwhile, some consumers were also attracted by the counterfeit products, which have the same design and considerable quality. The situation of LV in Japan seems to be fierce, however, with effective solutions, LV can also seize the opportunity to sustain profitability in Japanese market rather than just survive. As it is stated in the case that Japanese consumers had been holding the desire for inexpensive luxury products from Louis Vuitton. Therefore, to solve this problem and attract more customers, LV should strive to make “inexpensive” products by increasing the value of products, lowering the costs and prices, and finally creating high value for the consumers. As the scandal of counterfeit sold on the websites in 2008 led to a decline in the sales of Louis Vuitton products, it can be viewed as a valued opportunity for Louis Vuitton to establish its own business online since it can both add selling channels and empower the company to fight with counterfeiting.

The case study Preserve the Luxury or Extend the Brand presents a fictional dilemma, based on a real company, faced by Chateau de Vallois, a prestigious and famous wine-producing estate in the Bordeaux region of France. De Vallois is a family owned and run business; part owners are Gaspard de Sauveterre - a 75-year old majority owner, and equal partial owners: Francois de Sauveterre – Gaspard’s son and the chateau’s CEO , and Claire de Valhubert – Garspard’s granddaughter. De Vallois had fallen into a slow decline under its previous owner, but Gaspard along with Jean-Paul Oudineaux, his estate manager, had restored the chateau and since then de Vallois had been steadily profitable

With the rapid development of social economy, the public tends to focus on the social responsibility of the company, as well as feedback to the society, rather than pay close attention to how to create interest in the company. Especially, environmental protection and human rights has became the most pressing social phenomenon. Under this

LVMH has a wide range of consumers from different backgrounds. It is imperative that they are aware of religion, race, culture, and buying habits in every country. For instance, worldwide people are more dependent on the Internet, signifying that the methods of how people purchase goods are changing.

It is hard to imagine that after the financial crisis swept across Europe, many great transitional enterprises had to face collapse and bankrupt while the luxury goods industry become more prosperous. Recently, the French luxury goods group LVMH announced their recent business condition. The volume of the first week in October had incredibly increased by 12% the previous week. The Hermes Corporation also said that in order to meet the increasing number of market demand, it would open 15 branch stores in the latter half of the year. These aroused some fierce debates, the public held a skeptical opinion towards the questions: How can the luxury companies maintain their positions? Why didn’t they strike down by financial crisis?

Growth has been fueled by Coach’s niche as being ‘accessible luxury’. While Coach does not have the prices of most of its high-end competition, it is regarded throughout the industry, and most importantly by consumers, as being equal in quality to much more expensive brands.

Quick response of Zara leads it to be successful in the fashion clothing industry. Zara adopts international strategy for its operation. With vertical integration, it benefits Zara in cost aspect, however, it involves some risks. Due to our anaylysis on Zara’s operations, some of the recommendations are made to facilitate its further improvements.

The overall sales of luxury goods in the year 2009 is expected to be more than US$150 billion and Asia contributes 10% to it. The concept of luxury is now not confined to only to Europe and US, the Asian subcontinent contributes majorly to it, with India and China as the newly emerging markets. Professor James Twitchell (2002) comments on the democratization of luxury and the changing consumer psychology These new customers for luxury are younger than clients of the old luxe used to be, they are far more numerous, they make their money far sooner, and they are far more flexible in financing and fickle in choice. They do not

In Japan, the costs of LVMH handbags cost approximately 40% more than in France. This started a growing market to distribute bags from France to Japan for resale at a cheaper price. Arnault believes that the producers of LVMH’s goods need to be unrestrained by financial matters in order to produce extremely high quality products. To keep the brand management of highly priced and high quality goods, LVMH needs to expand to the younger new money of the Asian market. The high quality is also a result of the mentality that “Made in France” is perceived as high western quality. LVMH does not want to lower the labor costs because there would be a similar direction of the quality.

LVMH’s brand portfolio is a catalogue of the finest things money can buy. Arnault said, “A Star brand is timeless, modern, fast growing and highly profitable.”[iii] LVMH has positioned its brands strongly in the luxury segment offering more than 50 different brands under their five core competencies. LVMH has been successful through all of their various brands in their portfolio giving them each their independence and creativity. “LVMH is well known for leaving much operational and marketing freedom to the various brands it owns.”[iv] “LVMH has done an excellent job of brand positioning, says Ben Cavender, senior analyst at China Market Research Group. It has succeeded in securing the particularly enviable position of gaining a following among the top percentage of China’s wealthy. As the financial crisis stretches on, LVMH customers in China still have money to spend.[v] “LVMH’s brand imaging, which relies heavily on pushing its European heritage, is so successful that it has benefited other brands by proxy, says Paul French, one of the founders of Access Asia, a group dedicated to tracking regional consumer and marketing trends. “Everyone hangs on the coattails of Louis Vuitton’s brand imaging in China.”[vi]

Luxury product sales boost in the emerging marketing like China, which has extraordinary growth and strong potential consumers for the development of luxury goods in the China market. With gradually lower and lower increase of revenue in the European countries, Louis Vuitton (abridged as LV in the following sections) commits itself to set up more stores in China. However, LV is faced with the problems of declining profits in China, which urges it to adjust its entry strategy into the China market. In this case, this report will focus on distinguishing the factors that influence LV’s development in China and

UNIQLO is the abbreviation of “Unique Clothing Warehouse”, a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer which provides consumers with the business philosophy of " low price, quality assurance ", and achieved remarkable results as world's top apparel retailer. UNIQLO plans to have 100 fresh stores annually in China while many other retailers have retarded store openings on account of China's slowing economic growth (Doland, 2015). This report, therefore, will set out to evaluate UNIQLO's marketing strategies in China, with a particular focus on the importance of pricing, development of product and the need for precise positioning.

On the first meeting at the board room, we announced our brand identity as luxury represented on our flagship model TX7. Although it was the most expensive and luxury model among us and other competitors, we found a success in the market with market share growth from 1% to 2.5% as shown in Figure 1. Most successful business takes time to build a reputation in the market, even more for the luxury market (Luxury brand management, 2008). TX7