Has the Recent Recession Caused High Street Consumers to Change Their Buying Habits?

More recently, the recession impelled many bricks-and-mortar retailers towards a damaging focus on discounting that eroded not only many stores’ price positioning but also any point of differentiation or exclusivity.

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.

Helen’s is an upmarket fashion boutique store in Sydney’s east. Falling sales have been reflected by surveys that reveal consumers view the business as outdated and no longer relevant to consumers’ needs. Strong competition in the area has placed considerable pressure on pricing. The business’s target market, 50-65 year old females, no longer dominated the now younger demographic character of the area.

Fashion is a clear reflection of the social, economic, political and cultural period. More and more people are becoming concerned with their style and more importantly, how it affects their wallet. This mindset has paved the way for the fast fashion industry to flourish. Fast fashion is “clothing [being produced] at increasingly low prices, prices so low that many consumers consider this clothing to be disposable… the clothing equivalent of fast food.” (Claudio) Consumers are so caught up on the fact that they are getting a bargain, that they totally disregard the uncomfortable reality surrounding the dark side of mass-consumer fashion. The fast fashion industry has created a culture of mindless consumerism.

Given that Australia is the only advanced economy that didn’t fall into a recession as a direct result of the global financial crisis according to the Reserve Bank Chairmen and other leading economist, today, the Australia’s fashion industry is headed for a major crisis, affecting the established

The retail fashion sector is an enormous industry in the UK and there are many branded fashion retailers having

River Island is one of the most popular brands on the high street in the UK and it is in the fashion retailing business. Estimating total retail market size around five percent of the Britain’s economy and it employs around ten percent of the total workforce in the UK as per UK Trade & Investment, (2014). However, time is crucial for the companies on high street, because of declining rate of profit. The occurrence of this phenomena is the result of too many stores on the high street and weak customer spending. Weak customer spending is the result of use of latest technology by customers to buy the products (Bamfield, 2013). Therefore,

This marketing plan examines the case of TOPSHOP as a UK’s fast-fashion retailer. The following marketing plan is structured according the SOSTAC framework. Topshop is operating under the parental Arcadia Group. Over the latest years, Topshop has been one of the most popular UK’s fast-fashion retailers. The company is a multinational Omni-channel fashion retailer. Topshop is well-known for its high-quality products in medium low prices. The company’s portfolio owns a wide range of products and services. According to the Situational Analysis, the UK’s macro environment has changed over the latest years. The UK’s fast-fashion industry is becoming more and more cluttered with competitors from both UK

According to the research of IBIS World, department store sales depend heavily on the financial health of the consumer sector, including per capita disposable income. During periods of economic recession and decreasing income of people, consumers cut their spending by delaying purchases or substituting brands’ products with lower level products. This is heavily influenced by the unemployment rate and general economic growth. In the periods of strong economic activity people’s disposable income increase, and vice versa.

However, even though department stores are highly recognizable because of their name and history with regards to the brands they carry and their high end products, nowadays outlet stores are becoming much more popular because of their even lower pricing. Because of this low pricing, it is observable that the majority of customers are choosing these outlet stores over departmental stores, which bluntly means that the competition is becoming more and more severe. “In summary, unlike discount stores, traditional department stores tend to be challenged into finding, and creating, a winning combination of a diverse customer and merchandise mix, along with service and price expectations, rather than addressing and focusing on attracting bargain-seeking customers through niche target marketing” (Coward, 2003). In termination, the outlets’ only form of promotion is a permanent low price, whereas in department stores, there are many forms of promotion required in order to generate their profit.

In the case of outlet stores, brands are trying to sell their overstock, which has highly increased due to mass production. Not only is merchandise that was once available at a high-end boutique sold for a discount price, moreover some brands are producing some items solely for outlets (Edouard, 2006, 11). Assessing the six main facets of a luxury brand, which have been identified in a broad empirical study by Dubois/Laurent/Czellar and are considered to be global and most accurate, one can review the situation of the luxury market today. The six main facets are (Dubois/Laurent/Czellar, 2001, 8 ff.):

REFERENCESBBC WEB SITEwww.bbc.co.ukCLARKS WEB SITEwww.clarks.co.ukKEY NOTEMARKET REVIEW 2006 CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR INDUSTRYMINTEL MARKET REPORThttp://academic.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygen_academic/search_results/show&/display/id=220168THE TIMESONLINEhttp://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article732688.eceVERDICT MARKETING WEB SITEwww.verdict.co.uk/marketing

The recent recession has hurt the entire retail market and regaining profits will be a constant challenge for the entire industry. In order to remain competitive, Ann Krill states,” value and versatility have become very important. She needs an incentive to shop.” (Hymowitz, 2012) Ms. Krill goes on to say,” I think in uncertain economic times, value becomes more important...” (Hymowitz, 2012)

During the information search stage of their decision-making process, the consumer stated that they constantly looked at online shops and magazines to improve their personal understanding of fashion. It was noted that the consumer’s awareness set consisted of ten different brands. However, the size of her

The context chosen for investigation is female fashion in the UK. This particular retail sector was chosen as it has recently elevated visual merchandising to an issue of board level concern (Lea-Greenwood, 1998). Given this situation the sector affords an ideal context in which to investigate the impact of such cues on customers, as the degree of retailer sophistication in this area is likely to be higher than that displayed by organisations in other sectors. Within the female fashion sector the department store was selected as the specific venue for investigation. This is because it offers distinctive merchandising possibilities for a number of brands – both retail and clothing-based. Here, the retail brands are derived from those stores that source and display “own-brand” assortments, and the clothing-based brands stem from either a manufacturing or design base. Within the department store these brands are merchandised within their own concessions in a way that holds a number of extraneous variables constant – for example, building type or specific shop location. This makes the use of such a research context advantageous as it minimises the