Mkt230 Market Research: Analyse The Assessment Answers

Answer:

Background of the organization

• Footlocker is an American sportswear and foot retailer  company and has headquarters in Midtown , Manhattan and New York city

• It operates in 28 countries worldwide

• Some of the subsidiaries of the company are-Kids foot locker, Footaction USA and more

• The company has been endorsing sports based products such as NIKE, JORDAN

• For the current assignment, Australia based footlocker has been taken into consideration with stores in Marine Parade, Southport, queensland.

Overview of  Marketing Mix

• The  marketing mix could be divided into a number of components such as –product, price, place, promotion, people, process and physical evidence.

An analysis of  each of these components helps in understanding the  strategic positioning of the company

• Product- The product is the tangible /intangible item produced to satisfy the needs of certain groups of people.

• Price- the price is the amount paid by a customer to avail certain goods and services. As mentioned by Huang & Sarigöllü (2014), the cost effective prices has been associated with higher purchase value.

• The placement or distributionare very important factors in reaching the target customer segment.

• The Footlocker is located in Marine parade, Southport, Queensland within the Australia fair shopping center ("Foot Locker Australia", 2018).

• The promotional objectivesare very important in meeting the sales target of a company.

• Some of the  strategies used in this regard are word of mouth promotional strategies, advertising though  social media channels etc (Hanssens et al. , 2014).

• People-

• The aspect of people over here refers to the target customer group who the company is directly responsible for selling products to.

• Process

• The process refers to the pay and distribution systems which could be utilized to reduce the cost associated with good and services (Massingham and Pomering, 2017).

• Physical evidence 

• The physical evidence could be referred to as the brand name associated with a product or company (Huang & Sarigöllü, 2014) .

Footlocker market  statistics

• Footlocker engaged in global retail of athletically inspired shoes and apparel

• It operates through athletic stores and direct to customer business segments.

• The gross profitability margin of the brand is 29.34 USD million ("Foot Locker Australia", 2018).

Evaluation of Footlocker though marketing mix

• The strategic position of Footlocker within the Australian market could be analyzed with the help of the different components of marketing mix.

• Men’s shoes like NIKE, Jordan etc.

• Women’s  shoes, clothing etc.

• Retail items section separately hosted for kids

Place-

The location of the Footlocker in the Queensland market place has made it easily accessible

• The location within the Australia Fair shopping makes it easily frequented

• Discounts available at an rate of 15-20% makes purchase easy and cost –effective for the target customer group

• There are special features available at the stores such as exchanging the old shoes for the new ones which makes it affordable

Promotions-

The promotional channels used by Footlocker are advertising through social media and by arranging sales

Process-

Footlocker is spread across 28 countries worldwide

• It has a number of distribution channels which reduces their dependency upon a single distributor unit

Physical evidence-

Most of the footlocker products are provided with a warranty certificate of 1 year

For the accessories it is 6 months

The  brand has loyal  customers

Recommendations

• Based upon the marketing mix analysis a number of theories and strategies could be suggested to enhance the sale of the company:-

• Increasing the number of stores and outlets within the more remote areas of the country

• This will help in reaching out wider sections of audience
  
  
• Making the products available at high discount rates will help in attracting more number of customers

• Additionally,  making the products  available  though partnering online retail stores  will help in increasing the brand awareness.

• The use of social media channels  such as facebook , twitter and  whatsapp can  increase the  visibility factor of the product .

• Footlocker accepts pays through multiple channels such as direct account transfer, mobile wallets which makes purchase easier

• The Footlocker products are provided with certificates and paper documents as physical evidence (Carter, 2017)

• It also serves as a proof of authentic monetary transaction.

References

• Carter, D. (2017). The labor of online product promotion: Barriers to collective action. First Monday, 22(10).

• Foot Locker Australia (2018), Foot Locker Australia, Retrieved 1 May 2018, from https://www.footlocker.com.au/en/homepage australiafair.com.au

• com.au (2018), australiafair.com.au, Retrieved 2 May 2018, from https://www.australiafair.com.au/whats-happening/

• Hanssens, D. M., Pauwels, K. H., Srinivasan, S., Vanhuele, M., & Yildirim, G. (2014). Consumer attitude metrics for guiding marketing mix decisions. MarketingScience , 33(4), 534-550.

• Huang, R., & Sarigöllü, E. (2014). How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and ConsumerBehaviors (pp. 113-132). Springer, New York, NY.

• Massingham, P.R. and Pomering, A.A., 2017. Introducing Knowledge Management to the Marketing Mix.