Primark Essay

(3) In an effort to replace foreign- sourced goods sold at Wal-Mart stores with American-made ones, Wal-Mart developed its “Buy American” program. By 1989, the company estimated it had converted or retained over $1.7 billion in retail purchases that would have been placed or produced offshore, and created or retained over 41,000 jobs for the American work force.

J.Crew is an American multi-brand retailer that sells women’s, men’s, and children’s apparel and accessories, “including swimwear, outerwear, loungewear, wedding, bags, sweaters, denim, dresses, suiting, jewelry, and shoes.” (wikipedia.org.) It was originally founded as Popular Merchandise Inc., which was branded as Popular Club Plan at stores in 1947. Popular Club Plan sold affordable women’s clothing until mid 1980’s when their sales declined as another brand was launched and sold cheaper women’s clothing. Popular Club Plan changed its brand name to J.Crew in 1983, and changed their marketing approach from in-home demonstrations to mailing the catalogs to their customers’ homes and have the customers come to J.Crew stores to shop. Ever since the brand name change, J.Crew’s sales grew rapidly. The annual sales grew from 3 million to 100 million within 5 years as customers reacted positively to the catalogs and retailers. J.Crew faced some threats in late 1980’s, but continued to expand as a retail company. J.Crew went global in August 2011 and launched an online store in 2012. And now, J.Crew sell their products through 520 retails in the United States and some in Canada, Paris, London, and Hong Kong, and ships internationally to over hundred countries.

Secondly we found out Primark makes a good choice about location. Almost each branch store locates in the high street. From the diagram which we have researched, it could be concluded that location is also one of the most important factors which motivate customers to purchase and make Primark successful. percent of customers would like to consider the location of garment stores when they go shopping. Convenience and easiness are the expectations during each time customer’s purchase. Few customers are willing to spend extra time going to a remote place merely for the purpose of buying clothes. Furthermore, Primark is sensible; it hardly locate the

Lululemon Athletica produces high quality active wear at a premium price. The business has attracted customers by creating an environment/culture that fitness-oriented customers enjoy and respond to. According to (Beyer, Faifman, Ho, Kezunovic, & Olian), Lululemon understands their customers as well as their target market. Lululemon provides guests with an unrivaled experience, which has created many loyal customers that are quick to tell their friends and family about the company. Employee training and product knowledge is an important element in Lululemon’s strategy because employees are able to provide relatively technical answers to guests’ questions about their products.

There has been many ups and downs in the fashion industry and is always changing, being a store that offers that kind of merchandise you need to stay at the top of the game. Since J.C. Penney’s has opened its doors it has been through a great depression, a great recession, and many more ups and downs, and has still made it. Reason being they move with the economy not afraid to change and take the first step. They first open its doors as a fashionable store, and moved down the line to pretty much everything, some J.C. Penney’s have pharmacies,

J.C. Penney does a variety of things well which includes possessing a diverse supplier base, a unique marketing campaign, effective inventory management, and point-of-sale technology initiatives. They also possess national and private brands along with in-store departments such as MNG by Mango, Call It Spring by Aldo Group, and Sephora which attracts younger, affluent customers. Seattle’s Best Coffee is also a compelling department which includes a full-service café. Not to mention, their rewards program is an aspect of their business they are doing well. Their program offers discounts and rewards for shopping which enables their customers to obtain good deals. J.C. Penney has a strong purpose which entails “fitting the diversity

In analyzing the general environment of Lululemon the following factors are most important for the company to understand these factors and the trends within them: technological factors, political factors, sociocultural factors, and demographics. Through better understanding the effects of the factors in the industry and the company they can analyze the threats and opportunities within the factors and change their strategies to align them as necessary.

In this segment, the retailer J.C. Penney will be analyzed against the department store retail industry, with particular emphasis placed upon their competitors, Macy’s and Kohl’s. The major components to be discussed will include the general external environment (i.e. demographics, economics, politics, legal requirements, technologies and global expansion), the industry environment, the competitive environment, the driving forces and the key factors for success within the industry. In terms of the general external environment, the retail industry is a multi-trillion dollar business in the United States alone and maintains operations primarily due to consumer spending. Such purchases rely upon the disposable income of

Competitive Advantage and Customer Value proposition go hand in hand. “Competitive Advantage is an advantage gained over competitors by offering customers greater value, either through lower prices or by providing additional benefits and service that justify similar, or possibly higher, prices. “Customer Value Proposition is “a business or marketing statement that describes why a customer should buy a product or use a service. It is specifically targeted towards potential customers rather than other constituent groups such as employees, partners or suppliers.” Lululemon’s Competitive Advantage and Customer Value Proposition is:

A newcomer is going to have to build its way up the same way all the famous sporting goods brands have done it. Under Armour, Nike and Adidas/Reebok are aware of the possibility of new entrants in the market and that is why they keep advertising, establishing distribution channels, making marketing agreements, and keeping up brand loyalty in their customers.

For decades, J. Crew has been a staple of middle-class America’s wardrobe. The company targets upper-middle class customers, selling Ralph Lauren-like designs at a lower price point. However, in recent years, the company, in addition to numerous other middle-tier American retailers, has struggled to find it’s niche in an industry often focused on the extremes. J. Crew’s executive and marketing teams have implemented new strategies to regain market share.

After an in-depth analysis of Lululemon and its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, we have highlighted the most important factors from each of the previously stated categories that will both increase Lululemon’s profits in the short run and lead to long-term success. To begin, Lululemon is more than a clothing retailer. It is a lifestyle promoter. A lifestyle of health, well-being and the pursuit of internal happiness. Thus, they are not selling their merchandise at a price point related to the materials and labor hours associated with the product.

Though Primark has major strengths that have seen it grow over the years, it also has its share of weaknesses. One of the major challenges that Primark has faced in the past few years is the increased rivalry from other companies such as Esprit that have produced clothes lines that are a close replication of its products, hence impacting on its profits in a negative way. This made Primark to react in a rather spiteful way because it knew exactly how this would impact on its

Her transformation of Burberry had become a text book example of how to transform a business that other luxury brands are sometimes said to be “doing a Burberry” (Financial Times 2004). In 2005 Angela Ahrendts, replaced Bravo as Chief Executive who made changes to Burberry product line by making checks more stable and by focusing more on higher-margin products like handbags and perfumes (Friedman 2011).

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a performance measurement tool that originated in the business worlds. Performance measurement is a way to track performance over time to assess if goals are being met. Organizations measure their performance to monitor how they’re doing in achieving their overall mission and goals.