H & M Fashion Strategy

The industry we have chosen is the department store-retail industry. Within this industry, we have chosen the department stores of JCPenney and Macy’s. We find this industry, as well as these two companies, interesting from a strategic perspective. JCPenney has recently undergone a massive strategic restructuring in regards to its pricing, brand offerings, and store layout, pushing it away from the typical department store strategy of discounts and coupons. Its new strategy has become much closer to Wal-Mart’s strategy of every day low prices. Macy’s, on the other hand, has restructured with a push from the economic

* Procurement: As it is the second Europe’s cloth retailer company, for the production H&M uses a lot of material and workers so its mains recourses are material, labour and energy. That is why small changes in prices can affect the company’s profit a lot, and the fact that it does not own any manufactories causes some problems in controlling the production’s prices. However, not owning the factories can be an advantage in some cases. Indeed, if a problem appears, H&M can easily change its suppliers. Moreover, due to its huge size, H&M can easily manipulate with its suppliers to have the best quality at the lowest production’s price.

Lululemon is a high quality clothing brand selling items at an expensive price. Customers are willing to pay a substantial amount of money to purchase this clothing. Lululemon has the power to adjust prices constantly because they have a high budget. Hundreds of companies sell athletic clothes, but it can be argued that customers spend money to buy the logo rather than the clothing itself. Some of Lululemon’s competitors are Athleta, Nike, Fabletics, and Under Armor. Lululemon's $98 pair of leggings looks almost exactly like Athleta's $79 pair. Lululemon has the ability to do this because they know their customers will choose to buy their logo oppose to Athleta’s. The target area for Lululemon is typically upper middle class women but men and

TJX’s value is one of their key advantages for growth. TJX focuses on four main things which include: fashion, brand, quality and price. They believe these values have gave them the opportunity to expand and grow around the world since it can fit perfectly in the different economies and geographies. Besides this, they consider themselves one of the most flexible retailers in the world. This gives them the ability to “(…)act nimbly in the vendor and real estate marketplaces, react quickly to changing consumer and pricing trends, and navigate various economic and retail environments successfully.” (pg. 5)

All too common products success or failure rides heavily on how the product image characterized matches against the consumers associated beliefs for that same product when they contemplate on buying the product (Bhasin, 2016). Furthermore, the consumers’ willingness to buy based on those core beliefs and expectation of the product, further drives customers in reaching the final purchase decision. A company’s product can easily be short-lived or adopted quickly by a competitor company (Bhasin, 2016). Knowing this makes it critical for businesses to understand additional drivers associated with the customers shopping experience, along with the customer’s core belief and their expectation from the product purchase. Therefore, the following tables created provide details of Lululemon and Planet Fitness. This table shares each company’s core beliefs, basic product offering, customer expectation of a product and the company augmented benefits provided to the product for Lululemon Athletic Apparel and Planet Fitness.

Even though H&M follows a strategy which differs significantly from Inditex’s approach it is the closest competitor from the financial point of view. H&M differs from Zara because it outsources all of the production, it is more price oriented and spends more money on advertising. But both companies are based in Europe, are fashion forward at lower price retailers, and have a strong international expansion strategy. Exhibit 6 indicates that the financial results of Inditex and H&M seem to

Specifically, Macy’s plans on implementing a low-cost strategy through the creation of Backstage and Last Act to compete with the low prices offered by stores like T.J. Maxx and Ross. This low-cost strategy, in addition to a differentiation strategy, puts Macy’s in a situation what Michael Porter of Harvard University calls “stuck in the middle,” which he advises against. Porter argues that it is difficult to maintain low costs with the added costs from differentiation, so he counsels on making a definite choice. To Macy’s point, Gennette admits that they are operating in the middle and this a “good place to be” because the goal is to make small changes “hoping for [a] rebirth by a thousand measures” (Bloomberg

Consumers are very crucial stakeholders in any profit-making business. However, their value, to the enterprise, depends on the extent of the company’s perception of the consumers. The size of the market defines the level of revenues that a company can earn. Furthermore, every business targets at expanding its market so as to realize both short-term and long-term benefits. This analogy initiates the need for a market plan for a company besides execution of the enterprise’s consumers and their buying demeanor. This research paper focuses on providing a concise description of a business and its customers. The subject business is a creative firm – “Fit Fashion Designers (FFD)” Company.

Caroline Le Bon’s Fashion Marketing and Harriet Posner’s Marketing Fashion, defines fashion marketing and its elements. Fashion marketing and advertising is the process of analyzing, developing and marketing current fashion trends to satisfy consumer needs. Both or the readings discuss the role of marketing in the fashion industry and its differences to marketing other products. Fashion products are often trended items, temporary items based on design color, fabric and pattern. Le Bon and Posner elaborate the differences in advertising fashion products and advertising classical items. The contemporary fashion industry has confronted many changes because of globalization, the development of new distributions channels, ethical considerations and price sensitivity. Fashion managers must learn about, anticipate and understand the behaviors of their consumers using marketing tools in order to help them react, adjust or revise their attractive fashion products so that they can encourage and stimulate consumers’ desires and improve financial performance. (Le Bon, xvi) Both readings discuss how critical it is for fashion brands to develop a strategic marketing plan and effectively implement it. Caroline Le Bon’s thesis is to discuss the importance of the fashion industry and fashion’s diffusion process along several trends and products each season. She highlights the influences and different elements of a fashion marketing mix. Harriet Posner’s thesis is explain theoretical concepts

Louis Vuitton is able to “sell more while remaining fresh and retaining its cachet” in several unique ways (Kotler, Keller 296). The company first accomplished this back in 1987, when they created a category membership by comparing the brand to exemplars. That is, Louis Vuitton formed a conglomerate with the manufactures of champagne and cognac (Kotler, Keller 289). This merger placed Louis Vuitton in the prestigious and elite brand category, which helped the company to create a brand membership. This conglomerate could also be seen as a point of difference (POD) because they are creating an association with luxury goods. Moreover, the increased price strategy boosts Louis Vuitton’s image and makes the products a novelty because only the most elite consumers can afford to purchase the brand. The 60 plus hours spent on producing these items further its differentiation in the luxury handbag market. This adds quality to the product, which no other company provides. Erog, these strategies increase the company’s position within the market. Recently, the company has created POD’s by partnering with famous sports stars. In doing so, Louis Vuitton is expanding their brand image, which in turn, creates a new customer segment. Now, the brand will be associated as sporty. Whereas before, “high-fashion celebrities” endorsed the brand and the company was only known for being fashionable (Kotler & Keller). Another way the company has expanded their image and customer segments is by

Sweden 's Hennes & Mauritz, more commonly known as H&M, is a retail-clothing company, famous for its reasonably priced “fast fashion.” With 6 different brands sold in 3,300 stores spread out over 54 countries, the company is second only in size to its direct competitor Zara. H&M uses psychographic segmentation, targeting at customers who belong to the group of fashionable and trendy consumers, who see shopping as a social activity providing pleasure in their daily life.

Since H&M opened the first shop in Sweden in 1947, using an American concept of shops selling stylish clothes with low prices bring H&M successful in the domestic market. H&M started to expand internationally from 1964. Not only Europe market, H&M also enter in North America, Asia and Middle East market.

H&M is a retail store that catered to men and women with affordable, yet chic clothing. H&M originally known as Hennes, opened up their first women’s clothing store in Vasteras, Sweden in 1947. By 1964, they opened up their first outside store in Norway. The founder Erling Persson bought out an outdoor equipment store and began selling men’s and children’s clothing. This is when Hennes changed to Hennes & Mauritz in 1968 (H&M, 2013). In 1975, H&M introduced cosmetics to their customers. In 1974, H&M was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. In 1976, they began to sell teenage clothing under Impulse banner (Hoover, 2015). When the 1980s rolled around, Erling Persson handed the company down to his son, Stefan. With Stefan as CEO, H&M had 200 store open by 1985 and stores sales had grown more than 25% (Hoovers, 2015). Investors were thrilled from this sales jump. H&M wanted to reach their customers from their homes; they started doing catalogues with the mail order company. They began selling products online to their European customers in 1998. Rowells. In the early 90s, H&M continued to process rapidly opening store all over Europe in places like London, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. They used famous European models for advertisement in newspapers, magazines, and outdoor ads like billboards. In 2000, H&M reached the United States, opening up their store on Fifth Avenue in New York. H&M did their first designer collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld, which was

|Engineers have learnt from the past failures and so they can produce and|Sales of all products are seemingly starting to slow down. |

Nowadays, with people busy with work, study and family, they tend to save time in anyways as they could. One way that people can save time when go shopping is that they will go shopping at big departments stores. Department stores offer a broad selection of products from apparel to furniture under the same roof. As a result, people can find anything they need without driving around different stores to find it. Among the department stores, Macy’s and Dillard’s are well-known among everyone. Both of them have established their brand for a long time, gain a lot of trust and loyalty with their customers. It may seem that both companies are the same; however, they have different strengths and weakness of them self.