Avon's Marketing Strategy in International Markets

Avon's Marketing Strategy in International Markets

1/ Which actors in Avon's microenvironment and forces in the macro environment have been important in shaping its marketing strategies?

We can explain what is exactly microenvironment and macro environment.

Micro-environment is the factors in a firm's immediate environment which affect its performance and decision-making; these elements include the firm's suppliers, competitors, marketing intermediaries, customers and publics.

Macro-environment is the major uncontrollable, external forces (economic, demographic, technological, natural, social and cultural, legal and political) which influence a firm's decision making and have an impact upon its performance. Macroenvironment forces include the increasing mobility of the U.S. population (demographic change), which meant that both customers and salespeople were moving. This made it difficult for salespeople to establish loyal, stable customer bases.

In order to define what influenced the Avon's marketing strategy:

ACTORS in Avon's MICRO ENVIRONMENT FORCES in Avon's MACRO ENVIRONMENT

 Sales force: homemakers who needed extra money but didn't want a full time job outside the home.

 Recruiting salespeople was easy  An army of women selling products = Avon ladies

 Direct Saling

 Convenience for the customer

 They develop clients lists of friend or neighbours

 More women found that they needed to work outside the home

 Salaries needed more than part-time Job  When Avon ladies rang the doorbell, often no one answered.

 More competitor were competing for the pool of people interested in full or part time direct selling jobs.

 Increasing mobility of the US population : both customers...

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...ust its marketing strategies. Avon had successfully negotiated with the Chinese government to restart its business. Avon agreed to operate as a wholesaler, selling its products to retail stores and converting its 75 branch centers into retail outlets. The new arrangement meant that Avon's 50,000 sales representatives would lose their jobs.

Avon should not view a whole country as a single market and always bear in mind that there is a strong purchasing power in the hands of many urban communities in these countries. This is particularly true for China where the stereotype of 1.3 billion, low-income people living in rural areas is simply not true. China has the largest urban population in the world with 400 million consumers living in a set of urban centers along the Chinese coast. There should be a concerted marketing effort to targets this huge untapped market.