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External analysis of lululemon
External analysis of lululemon
Key elements of lululemon's strategy
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Lululemon positions itself by exploiting its points of differentiations. Hence, Lululemon focuses on women as well as innovative technology, high quality materials, functional apparel to bring fashioned luxury athletic apparel to this industry, which doesn't have many high-end products. Thanks to unique positioning, Lululemon has figured out how to create a niche market within the athletic apparel industry. It also differentiates itself from it rivals by providing one of a kind product offering in term of high-performance apparel, stylish. Figure 1 outlines Lululemon's unique positioning. It focuses on the customers' beliefs and values. This permits the brand to develop value based on how the products satisfy
The retail industry is continuously growing. There are many successful companies and entrepreneurs in this industry. One successful entrepreneur is Dennis Wilson, also known as Chip Wilson.
Peterson, Hayley. "Lululemon Has Entered Completely New Territory With A New Clothing Line." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 18 Mar. 2014. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. .
Kilpatrick, Marcus, Edward Hebert, and John Bartholomew. "College Students' Motivation for Physical Activity: Differentiating Men's and Women's Motives for Sport Participation and Exercise ." Journal of American College Health 54 (2005): 92. Mintel . Web. 4 Dec. 2013.
People are often deceived by some famous brands, which they will buy as useless commodities to feel they are distinctive. People require brands to experience the feeling of being special. People spend their money to have something from famous brands, like a bag from Coach or Louis Vuitton which they think they need, yet all that is just people’s wants. Steve McKevitt claims that people give more thought on features or brands when they need to buy a product, “It might even be the case that you do need a phone to carry out your work and a car to get around in, but what brand it is and, to a large extent, what features it has are really just want” (McKevitt, 145), which that means people care about brands more than their needs. Having shoes from Louis Vuitton or shoes that cost $30 it is designed for the same use.
To expand brand awareness, brand loyalty, and the appeal of its products the company implements a grassroots community-based marketing strategy. The company selects ambassadors that are local fitness professionals to proliferate word-of-mouth marketing among their students (Thompson, 2014, p.C86). Lululemon additionally engages social media, sponsors local athletic, fitness, and philanthropic events, and positions a community events bulletin board and chalkboards in its stores. The bulletin board displays announcements of future activities, presents fitness education and brochures, and promotes neighboring ambassadors’ yoga studios and fitness centers, while the dressing room chalkboards provide an outlet for customers to rely their comments (Thompson, 2014, p.C86). Lululemon’s yoga ambassadors lead a class every four to six weeks; whereas local professional yoga instructors conduct weekly classes at their local Lululemon location as the retail stores allocate the rearrangement of merchandising displays to provide ample floor space. These retail stores reflect the appearance of a simple, neighborhood boutique as they are situated in street locations, shopping centers, lifestyle centers, and malls as a means of integrating into the community (Thompson, 2014, p.C82). This is enhanced
Lululemon, a premium yoga-focused retail chain, serves two market segments. One segment consists of consumers who are characterized as “trendy urban” and the other segment consists of “wealthy” consumers. The “trendy urban” segment, in summary, is fashion oriented or active women who live in metropolitan areas. The “wealthy” market segment is affluent women who live in either urban or suburban areas. As discussed below, these two market segments are defined by differences in demographics, geography as well as behavioral and psychographic characteristics.
Under Armor is viewed as a designer company for athletic wear. The company makes higher quality merchandise, which comes with a higher price tag. Under Armor’s line appeals to a wide variety of people, from upper class to lower class consumers. While it is easier for consumers in upper class society to purchase this high-end workout gear, it may not be reasonable to consumers in the lower class or even middle class markets. Companies such as Wal-Mart and Target can make a very similar product for almost half the price. To prevent losing these customers, Under Armor should consider a mor...
Offering special products is marked under strengths and opportunity; however, long term sustainability must ease the weaknesses and threats posed by competitors and external markets forces. However, they are several other strengths of this company that outweigh the weaknesses but can easily be threatened. Lululemon has a great brand equity and knowledge in the market which has helped them development a customer loyalty. While Lululemon’s strengths is challenging, limiting their products to a special market, with higher than normal prices opens the markets for competitors. Lululemon has several weaknesses, they only offer a specialty product and it mostly aimed to attract woman. The company’s profitability has decreased over the recent years, showing the necessity for Lululemon to sustain its economic growth through product diversification and geographical expansion. Many of their competitors have grown, mostly likely due to their global growth and divarication. If Lululemon would expand their market growth this would open up so much more opportunity for this company to grow. One of their weaknesses is there is the dependence on suppliers. This opens a great opportunity for Lululemon, right now they are heavily relying on suppliers around the world and they do not have their own manufacturing facilities. This is causing the company to spend more money of vendors to
The market in which this company operates may be considered a division of the fashion industry. This industry is known for being highly competitive and dynamic. Also for obvious reasons many companies within it concern themselves with company image.
The marketing mix is often crucial when determining a product or brand's offer, and is often associated with the four P's: place, promotion, product and price. UA’s four P’s match their target market perfectly. UA uses an ease of reach approach in placing its products. You can purchase items in stores or online, prices being somewhat cheaper than the competition but surely providing a deal for its consumers for the quality and performance given for their dollar. UA has also expanded into brand stores which provide another offering to consumers. The company uses a targeted market approach to save expenses related to extensive research. Its well defined target markets include the Hispanic market which has exceeds all ethnicities for its interest in fitness wear. Its international expansion is helping place its products within easy reach of buyers throughout the world.
The principles of marketing (The Times 100, n.d) are a range of processes concerned with finding out what consumers want, and providing it for them. This involves the ‘4ps’ of marketing; price, place, product and promotion. The product decision in any company involves dealing with goods that should be offered to a group of customers (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). Burberry maintains a product line with great width and scope in which their products fall into two main categories; fashion or continuity. Their fashion products are designed to be responsive to fashion trends and are introduced on a collection to collection basis (Burberry, n.d). Continuity products however have life cycles that are expected to last for a certain time period. Burberry also has 3 primary collections; womenswear, menswear and accessories, with the variety of products they can utilize their product mix greatly. Burberry also has...
The business model that sets Zara apart from other clothing retailers is how rapidly the company changes stocks and releases new product lineups. The company averages 12-16 collections annually which equates to more than one lineup a month. Due to stock being limited and the rapid production Zara brings forth, their items are viewed as exclusive promoting further business. Their customers are happy knowing that their specific article of clothing is more “rare” due to only having an average of a two-week window to purchase the clothing. The company specifically targets current trends and has them in the store within 30 days. This maintains the brand’s uniqueness and relativity in fashion.
Clothing industry in the U.S is a big but very competitive industry. It has a very high potential for firms to generate million dollars of profit. However, it is also a very tough environment to survive. Express Inc, Gap Inc, and Guess ? Inc are three of the U.S clothing companies who are experiencing the extremely competitive environment. Each company has its own competitive strategy to fight in the market. With Express, the firm tries to differentiate its products by creating unique, formal, luxury and sexy image in their minds. Gap, on the other hand, try to provide customers with high variety of products and prices. Guess tries to follow the fashion trend investment to attract its customers. Whatever the strategies are, the most important thing is archive huge market share and generating profit. This paper will provide some background, analyze the market condition, the strategies as well as give some recommendation for each of the three companies above.
...ot famous enough. I have come to the conclusion that they are more expensive than the general clothing brands. Also, since they invest a lot of money in a sustainable production of their products, they cannot afford big marketing campaigns, such as the ones that the dominant clothing brands already have.
Like differentiation, positioning depends on a customer’s understanding of a brand or product relative to competing products within the market. The difference between differentiation and positioning is that in differentiation the brand is set apart from competing brands, but in positioning the brand is juxtaposed relative to similar brands and products. Both concepts require a value judgement of the brand within the market. (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). The key importance of both positioning and differentiation for a marketing strategy is establishing the value of a product in the minds of a consumer relative to other products. When a customer knows how well a product stacks up against the competition, she has more of a reason to choose it over the