Lululemon Case Analysis Essay

Over the last 10 years’ gym memberships within the United States have increased from 41.3 million to 54.1 million. The biggest trend over the last few years is becoming fit, more and more each day people are finding ways to live fit and healthier lifestyles. From eating the right nutritional foods, working out and people just wanting to follow the latest and greatest trends. The increase in gym memberships and the amount of people working out leads to the increase in athletic attire. For this exact reason athleisure wear was born, it is the newest fashion trends were people wear athletic clothing regardless if they intend go to the gym or not that day. People are wearing it to the office, shopping, to run errands and other social events. Athleisure wear consist of articles of clothing such as spandex, leggings, yoga pants, sports bras and fashionable sweats. Over the last 10 years an increase in athleisure wear has spread at a rapid rate globally, particularly in the women’s fashion industry. Since 2013 the increase in athleisure wear apparel has grown by 14% and accounts for 18% of the total clothing retail market. With this trend still catching on, active wear is expected to continue to grow at an average rate of 3.3% annually. Due to this rapid increase in purchasing athleisure wear the apparel industry will continue to grow especially Nike because they are the market leaders in active sportswear. For that exact reason I believe that Nike is a

Despite previous and recent controversy going on within Lululemon the company still looks to fight for their brand image and focus on their core competencies to renew the companies image. While former CEO, Laurent Potdevin did help create the trend of athleisure the company still aims to maintain on focus on the trend (Schmidt, 2018). Due to high comfort of athleisure wear for millennials, they want to continue to strive to bring that to consumers lifestyles. Consumer’s would be able to wear Lululemon products “... in the office, while running errands, when out with friends, [and] at the gym…” (Fromm, 2016).

The athletic apparel industry has shown a large increase in popularity. Global sales of sport clothing have increased from 146.1 billion US dollars in 2007 to 162 billion US dollars in 2012(Global Participative Sport as Consumption). Particularly in the United States, sales of sport apparel have increased by 7% from 2013 to 2014 (Wingus). There has been a large trend in healthy living, as “activewear accounted for $33.7 billion in sales and made up 16 percent of the apparel market” (Wingus). The industry is booming, as sportswear, specifically yoga pants, has transformed into people’s daily apparel. (Refer to Appendix Table 1) Huffington post noted, “people are wearing trendy workout clothes all day, every

Lululemon is one of the Canada’s best retailers of technical athletic yoga apparel. Lululemon’s yoga inspired apparel is marketed under the two brand names Lululemon Athletica for more mature women and Ivivva Athletica for younger girls. Lululemon primary target customers are educated and hard working women, who understand the importance of healthy and active lifestyle. Majority of these women are Caucasian who are mainly urban and have higher income, since Lululemon is an expensive brand .Most of their products are design to offer fit, performance and comfort while incorporating both style and function. On another hand, American Apparel

Lululemon Athletica, is a yoga-inspired athletic apparel company with products that create transformational experiences for people to live happy, healthy, fun lives. Lululemon has teamed up with Jennifer Anniston to promote a healthy lifestyle at the 5k at Millennium Park.

Lululemon’s strategy is not only sell the product, they also offer healthy life style and targeting very specific segment which is customers who do yoga. Their competitive advantage is they offer benefits except a good product such as physical

According to Business Insider’s Ashley Lutz, the Athletic Apparel Industry is soaring. Lutz goes on to discuss how Nike and Adidas had to modify their target markets because of emerging companies like Lululemon. The three most attractive markets for activewear are teens (who activewear comprises 28% of their total apparel purchases), young women (Lululemon’s ideas customer is a 32-year-old professional single woman named Ocean who makes $100,000 a year), and serious athletes (running, not running

Lululemon is a rapidly growing company with a different niche for its products. Its philosophy as well as their business model has allowed them to increase revenue over the past years. The dilemma they faced is how to continue expanding without losing their special niche, grassroots and a nontraditional feel of the brand that sets them apart from their competitors.

In this short report I will be discussing the company, Lululemon Athletica Inc. Chairman Dennis “Chip” Wilson founded Lululemon Athletica Inc. in 1998. The Vancouver, Canada-based Lululemon Athletica Inc. designs and sells yoga apparel under the Lululemon Athletica and also Ivivva Athletica brands, to the athletic consumer. Their mission statement is to create components for people to live longer, healthier, fun lives. They operate in 250 company-owned stores in North America alone in 2015; they also have other stores around the world. Lululemon has 8,628 people employed as of 2015. They primary design apparel is for women that like to run, do yoga, or dance. But the company also offers a line for men. A third-party in Taiwanese constructs the attire, which is then distributed to the different stores in Canada, North America, and all over the world.

The women's apparel market is highly competitive. With the launch of a new active-wear line from Harrington Collection's, more and more competitors will start to realise the potential value in in producing an active-wear line of their own. The active-wear market is growing so rapidly (expected to double turnover from 2007 to 2009), that eventually all of Harrington's competitors would likely be expected to launch a line of their own, relying on existing brand loyalty and high-scale advertising campaigns to capture market share and move units.

This paper commences by defining the problems that were faced by Lululemon Athletica Inc in 2013. After, the author explores the causes of the issues that the company was experiencing and the effects that they had on Lululemon Athletica Inc. The next step is to look at ways in which the issues could have been addressed both for the short-term and long-term. When all is said and done, the audience will fully appreciate why “Lululemon Athletica Inc should revert to its fundamentals – that is, to concentrate on the needs of the consumer”.

Internal forces has driven Lululemon Athletica's fundamental objective to give their customers items that will enable them to live long and sound

Over the last 10 years’ gym memberships within the United States have increased from 41.3 million to 54.1 million. The biggest trend over the last few years is becoming fit, more and more each day people are finding ways to live fit and healthier lifestyles. From eating the right nutritional foods, working out and people just wanting to follow the latest and greatest trends. The increase in gym memberships and the amount of people working out leads to the increase in athletic attire. For this exact reason athleisure wear was born, it is the newest fashion trends were people wear athletic clothing regardless if they intend go to the gym or not that day. People are wearing it to the office, shopping, to run errands and other social events. Athleisure wear consist of articles of clothing such as spandex, leggings, yoga pants, sports bras and fashionable sweats. Over the last 10 years an increase in athleisure wear has spread at a rapid rate globally, particularly in the women’s fashion industry. Since 2013 the increase in athleisure wear apparel has grown by 14% and accounts for 18% of the total clothing retail market. With this trend still catching on, active wear is expected to continue to grow at an average rate of 3.3% annually. Due to this rapid increase in purchasing athleisure wear the apparel industry will continue to grow especially Nike

"Another course of action Lululemon is taking to handle external pressures is by overseas expansion, particularly in Europe and Asia. Lululemon will implement a polycentric attitude when developing their brand on foreign soil, meaning they will hire local experts instead of western managers from the host

At the time the company was yoga based store and a few other athletic wear products. They started to get their company name out by being a design studio by day and a yoga studio by night. From that point on Lululemon could raise the name recognition and expand its product line and understand their core base. Today, as implied earlier LuluLemon has become known as an athletic clothes connoisseur. The main target market is millennial women, but they have entered the male athletic wear market and have been trying to their sales pool. However, their marketing mix is very much a core mix, their placement of their products is at their own stores only, but advertise in many athletic related websites and athletic related paraphernalia. The company offers many promotions specifically on social media and some print ads. In regards to price they are higher priced than average athletic wear. Therefore, Lulu is trying to target more well established consumers. Finally, as stated earlier Lulu’s products are athletic wear products such as yoga pants, shorts, and shirts, but Lulu is looking at expanding their product line capabilities. All in all, Lulu is known for their quality and uniqueness to the market segment, they offered their consumers a range of products needed in today’s fitness world. Therefore, Lululemon is looking for all options to improve their market outreach to meet the needs of their clients.