Foot Locker, Inc. Case Study

The concept of market structures and competitive strategies are important when attempting to compete in any market. Understanding what market structure your product falls under can help companies develop better competitive strategies and identify potential for loss and gains. The athletic footwear industry in the United States is highly profitable and continuously growing. In this paper I will identify market structure of the athletic footwear industry, the major retailers, and competitive strategies that can be used to maximize profits.

Obviously, there is a big number of driving forces in the athletic footwear industry. Each of these driving forces has different impacts—some of them can have a more considerable effect than others on figuring out how much cross-company differences influence market shares and a number of units sold. The first line of most influential factors includes comparative prices, S/Q ratings, and a number of models offered among the footwear competitors. These three most important competitive forces affect customer decisions of which athletic footwear brand to choose. Furthermore, the decisions of customers whether to purchase one brand or another are also influenced by such forces as advertising, celebrity endorsements, the number of independent retail

In the 16-century on November 1519, Cortes and his men arrived in Tenochtitlan. Hernan Cortés and his army came to South America (Tenochtitlan) to claim new land for Spain. The Aztecs are Native American people who took over Northern Mexico at the tome of the Spanish conquest, early 16th century. The Aztecs had a nomadic culture and eventually settled on many small islands in Lake Texcoco in 1325 where they founded the town known as Tenochtitlan, which is now a modern day Mexico City. The Aztecs created an empire between the 15th century that was soon surpassed in size in the Americas only by that of the Incas.

Second major competitor of Dick’s Sporting Goods is Foot Locker. According to Yahoo Finance, the company is an American sportswear and footwear retailer based in New York, New York and was founded in 1974. The company operates as a retailer of athletic footwear. Foot Locker sells more athletic shoes than any other retailer in the U.S. As of January 28, 2012, it operated 3,369 stores in 23 countries including North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The company employs 13,080 associates as of 2012.

Companies like Under Armour, Nike and Adidas/Reebok have high threats of substitute´s products. These companies share the sport apparel industry and are vulnerable to competitive pressure from the actions of buyers whenever they view that their products can be substituted for others. The availability of substitutes invites the costumer to compare performance, features, and ease of use as well as price. Under Armour’s major competitors are Nike and Adidas/Reebok because they have a similar or competing product offerings. The top sport apparel brands offer similar products and that is why each one of them needs to keep a high standard and produce good quality products in order for customers to keep buying their product.

This report has been created with the intent to analyze the athletic apparel industry with a specific focus on Lululemon Athletica, Inc., further refered to as Lululemon. In this report you will find that the strengths and weaknesses of Lululemon’s current strategies and future goals are analyzed and compared to that of its closest competitors. In conclusion to the analysis, recommendations have been made to potentially guide Lululemon Athletica, Inc. in a positive direction in regards to its future endeavors. The following

Many of the big established shoe brands have seen consolidation and hence they have become bigger and more powerful in terms of competing with the rest.

Therefore it makes it hard for companies like Nike, Adidas and Under Amour etc. to be able to have power over the customers. If a buyer is dissatisfied with any company in the industry; that buyer can easily switch to another company to acquire the products that they need.

Analyzing the industry using Porter’s Five Forces, it can be seen that the Outdoor Apparel industry is very competitive. The threat of entry is very high, with several large conglomerates making acquisitions in the industry and established apparel companies such as Polo Ralph Lauren making expansions into sports apparel. With several brands such as North Face in the high end of the industry, as well as Columbia and several private labels dominating the middle and lower ends, a large number of substitutes are available. Buyers have large bargaining power, as end consumers could easily switch to another brand, while at the same time wholesalers are

The athletic shoe industry will be first analyzed by the Porter’s Five Forces framework. The well-known Porter’s Five Forces is a model that analyzes an industry and helps firms develop a business strategy. The five forces model focuses on six forces that will determine the attractiveness of this industry: (1) the risk of entry by potential competitors, (2) the intensity of rivalry among established companies within an industry, (3) the bargaining power of buyers, (4) the bargaining power of suppliers, (5) the closeness of substitutes to an industry 's products, and (6) the power of complement providers (Hill, Jones, & Schilling, 2015).

The forces of Nike’s customer-supplier relationship is based on joint efforts of improved quality, mutually beneficial partnerships, reduced costs, and increased market share for both parties. According to Nike building customer-supplier relationship is one of the most important goals because it is the analysis of the value chain which is defined as the collection of all activities involved in designing, marketing, manufacturing, delivering and supporting Nike’s products. Having strong relationship with both parties helps Nike to predict and notice any problem at might rise in the supply chain; as a result Nike will be able to develop better solutions to avoid it (Wankel, 2009). The first tier supplier of Nike is located mainly in Taiwan and South Korea, which work closely with R&D personnel in Oreon making the most expensive footwear. Strategies have shown that Nike implements include the vertical integration strategy. In general, the vertical integration strategy allows a firm to gain control over distributors, suppliers and competitors (Nike report, 2015). Nike has implemented forward integration by having its own retail locations throughout the United States, foreign countries & online stores. Every partner has a hugely significant

The strength of the competitive forces vary among the Under Armour, Nike, and The Adidas Group. The buyer bargaining power of Under Armour, is somewhat weak. Under Armour’s growth strategy entails, “Securing

In “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Poe, an unnamed narrator is convened to a mansion that had a “sense of insufferable gloom” (poe) when seen. The man who summoned the narrator was a friend to who he had known as a child, Roderick Usher. Despite how the house gives him “an utter depression of the soul.” (poe ), he reunites with his boyhood friend. Roderick is experiencing exceptionally weird psychological disorder and his sister, Madeline is going to die on because of a mysterious infection.

The sportswear industry is very price sensitive and most competitors prices are about the same. Nike sells its products in Nike shops and the selling of its products direct to the consumers conflicts with other resellers of the brand. Most of Nike’s earnings are derived from selling into retailers.

Nike places more importance on choosing the right local partners, not just the right ports. Nike doesn’t own any of its facilities, and local partners make important logistics decisions (Field, 2003a). To manage relationships, Nike has both a global and regional vendor management team – as output volume increases, Nike don’t expand the number of suppliers, but increase the volume of business they do with each supplier (Field, 2003a).