FU001425 Fashion Marketing: Analysis of Street Fashion - Top Shop

You work as an account assistant representing a fashion brand or retailer. You have been asked to prepare a marketing audit research report document that will be used to write a marketing plan. To do this, select a fashion brand/retailer/organisation from the list provided below.

High Street: Topshop 

Introduction

Marketing is the key to attract the target customers successfully by creating a unique image in the eye of the customers. The sales of the fashion industry greatly rely on how the business organizations market their product and distinguish them from the potential competitors in the market. Therefore, it is essential for the business organizations in the fashion industry to be aware of their strength and weakness along with having a deep understanding of the competitors and their business strategy.

This report highlights the market environment analysis of high-street fashion, Top shop along with consumer analysis, competitor analysis and the 7 Ps of the marketing mix.  

Background of the organization

Topshop is a British multinational fashion retailer that includes clothing, makeup, accessories, and shoes. The company has more than 500 stores around the world out of which approximately 300 stores are present in the UK. The company also operates online thereby, providing convenience shopping for the target customers. The company was established in 1960 in Oxford Street, London that later gained worldwide recognition due to the fashionable products and accessories. The company majorly deals with women clothing and accessories that are highly appreciated by the women. The products of the company are highly priced thereby, limiting the target customers on their income. The company sells products from various well-known designers such as Jourdan Dunn, Clements Ribeiro, Trsitan Webber and Tracey Boyd. The clothing and accessories of the company have been featured in the various fashion weeks such as London Fashion Week. The company operates on franchise business venture and operates across 37 countries through online operations. However, in 2012 around 25% stake was sold to a US-based private equity group named Leonard Green and Partners with the aim of speeding up international business expansion in the US (Topshop.com, 2017).

Market Environment Analysis

SWOT Analysis of Topshop

Strength: The brand is associated with a number of top celebrities and designers such as Louise Grey and Emma Cook that helps in setting and launching new trends thereby, attracting the target customers. The brand has several stores on a global platform with clothing range for both tall and petite customers. The brand also supports many charities that have helped in gaining global recognition and making a mark in the eye of the customers (Sevkli et al. 2012).

Weakness: Limited size range is a drawback for the brand thereby, narrowing down the customers within the size of 6-16. In the age of technology, the brand has underdeveloped television and video advertisement thereby, restricting the brand in reaching out the customer in every niche of the country. The Oxford Street is having the majority of the stores with special features that eventually limits the accessibility for all the target customers (Blundell 2013).

Opportunities: The brand needs to make clothing line various body shapes that will help in widening their customer base. The option of personalized gifts along with clothing line for children and pets will help in gaining the competitive advantage over the competitors. The brand can also involve fresh graduate designers as this will help in understanding the demands and expectations of the youth and design clothing line accordingly (Thompson and McLarney 2017).

Threats: The top competitors and availability of cheaper stores are a major threat to the brand. Additionally, the brand lacks enough recognition in the US that hampers their business (Quix and Van Der Kind 2016).

PESTLE Analysis of Topshop

 
Political: According to the “Advertising Code” of the Advertising Standards Authority, Topshop should be responsible for the advertisement they show and ensuring that the advertisement should not mislead the mass. Topshop withdrew the advertisement of the skinny model in 2011 due to complaints from the pressure group (Roberts et al. 2012).

Economic: The brand offers 10% discount for the students in order to influence the consumer buying decision along with offering Topshop card that provides benefit for the target consumer market (Utami and Lantu 2014).

Social: The brand aim towards appealing the target market psychologically by describing the type of customer.

Technological: iPad and mobile phone applications of the brand can be downloaded directly to the customer’s device thereby, providing them easy access.

Legal: The brand provides an opportunity for the customers to cancel their order any time before the expiry period along with full refund upon returning the item.

Environmental: The brand has pledged to support the Carbon Reduction Commitment by investing in better energy management and transport. The company has successfully reduced 5.4% carbon emission in 2011 along with introducing reusable packaging materials (Zhang and Zhao 2012).

SPICC Analysis

 Consumer Analysis

 Pen Portrait of the Customers 

Competitor Analysis

 The below graph shows the market position of Topshop along with its competitors such as River Island and Zara.  

(Source: Gremme 2014)

Figure 2: Product Perceptual Map of Topshop

(Source: Varela and Ares 2012)

Topshop sells products that are affordable to the customers with varied income group. The brand also sells products that are brought occasionally due to high price range but the clothing line is more on trend. The unique collection of Topshop is expensive but is considered as the most fashionable as it has been featured on the catwalk. However, on the contrary, the basic collection is extremely simple and cheap. Topshop also sells basic clothing but with added detail at prices are high such as the jeans.

Figure 3: Product Perceptual Map of Zara and River Island

(Source: Khan 2013)

Zara has products that are similar in price with Topshop. Zara has a basic clothing line at cheap prices called the TRF collection along with expensive clothing line at high prices. On the other hand, River Island is similar to Zara as the pricing of River Island is in similar price range. However, River Island does sell basic products at cheap rates such as tank tops and jegging along with expensive clothing line made up of expensive and high-quality clothing material.

Marketing Mix

The marketing mix for Topshop includes:

Product

Figure 4: Products of Topshop

(Source: Varela and Ares 2012)

Price

Figure 5: Price Range for Topshop products

(Source: Varela and Ares 2012)

Promotion

 The company uses various types of promotional strategies such as the use of social media, advertising both above the line and below the line advertisement, sales promotions by offering discounts up to 10%, personal selling, and direct marketing.

Place

Figure 6: Places used by Topshop

(Source: Varela and Ares 2012)

People

The roles of the in-store employees include the sales advisor that will help in providing a consistent service, ensuring that the stock is replenished, advising the customers on their selection. The retail management includes the store managers, brand and deputy brand managers, operations manager and back of house managers. Additionally, personal shoppers by appointment are available at outlets in Leeds, Glasgow, London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and Manchester.

Physical Evidence

The brand uses visual merchandise and music in order to create attractive environment or atmosphere for the customers. The methods include visual and audio representation along with loud and current music with the top hits that helps in attracting the young target markets.

Process

The brand Personal Selling Service that provides an experienced staff to guide the customers thereby, influencing their purchasing decision. The brand also believes in after sales services by dropping messages of various promos and offers to the customers at regular interval. The brand completely refunds the money to the customers before the expiry period upon handing over the product.

Conclusion

In this report, it can be concluded that Topshop is a high street British fashion brand with more than 500 stores globally. The brand is highly facilitated by the customers that favor trendy, designer and stylish clothing accessories. The report highlights the conduction of SPICC analysis, SWOT analysis and PESTLE analysis thereby, confirming that Topshop's collection is unique and competitive within the market. The marketing strategies implemented by the brand has helped in bringing together all the elements of marketing mix successfully and effectively in order to achieve the marketing objectives by fulfilling the needs of the target customers.

References

Blundell, L., 2013. Resurrection of a retail giant. Property Australia, 27(9), p.22.

Gremme, M., 2014. Zara. Global Fashion at Local Prices.

Khan, T., 2013. STP strategy for New Product Launch-a Work in Progress. International Journal of Business and Management Invention, 2(3), pp.56-65.

Quix, F. and van der Kind, R.P., 2016. Retail marketing. Routledge.

Roberts, M., Pettigrew, S., Chapman, K., Miller, C. and Quester, P., 2012. Compliance with children’s television food advertising regulations in Australia. BMC Public Health, 12(1), p.846.

Sevkli, M., Oztekin, A., Uysal, O., Torlak, G., Turkyilmaz, A. and Delen, D., 2012. Development of a fuzzy ANP based SWOT analysis for the airline industry in Turkey. Expert systems with Applications, 39(1), pp.14-24.

Thompson, J. and McLarney, C., 2017. What Effects will the Strategy Changes Undertaken by Next Plc Have on themselves and their Competition in the UK Clothing Retail Market?. Journal of Commerce and Management Thought, 8(2), p.234.

Topshop.com. (2017). Topshop - Women's Clothing | Women's Fashion & Trends. [online] Available at: https://www.topshop.com/?geoip=home [Accessed 14 Nov. 2017].

Utami, R.M. and Lantu, D.C., 2014. Development competitiveness model for small-medium enterprises among the creative industry in bandung. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 115, pp.305-323.

Varela, P. and Ares, G., 2012. Sensory profiling, the blurred line between sensory and consumer science. A review of novel methods for product characterization. Food Research International, 48(2), pp.893-908.

Wedel, M. and Kamakura, W.A., 2012. Market segmentation: Conceptual and methodological foundations (Vol. 8). Springer Science & Business Media.

Zhang, G. and Zhao, Z., 2012. Green packaging management of logistics enterprises. Physics Procedia, 24, pp.900-905.