MKT230 Market Research: Analyse the Marketing Strategy of Footlocker

Task

Marketing is all about being able to communicate your ideas to specific audiences. The purpose of assessment four is to help you develop your presentation skills as it is one of the most common ways of communicating in business. There are many technological aids that can help a presenter so it is important to have a good understanding on how technology can help you.

You are the new marketing manager for your chosen organisation. Based on the results of the report, you have been tasked with analysing the current marketing strategy.

The assessment has three steps:

1. Define the extended marketing mix by providing an overview of theory (i.e. product, price etc.)
   
   
2. Explain in an summary overview the current marketing strategy for your organisation under the basic concept headings of the marketing mix
   
   
3. Based on your review of the current strategy and the current theory and market trends, make specific and well justified recommendations for changes to your chosen organisation's current marketing strategies (i.e. a creative approach to the 7 Ps)

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.