Foxy Originals
Team 1: Van-de-lay Industries
Ruwanthi Herath, Manasa Varalakshmi, Gabriela Chassagne, James McDougall, Aaron Layden
Executive Summary
Foxy Originals hopes to gain successful market entry into the United States within six months. The U.S. market is significantly larger than the Canadian market that Foxy currently operates in and has substantially less brand loyalty and demand for classic jewelry. Foxy’s two potential methods of market entry are: (1) Tour their products at ten U.S trade shows and make direct sales to retailers or (2) Hire four sales representatives in fashion hubs across the U.S. We, Vandelay Industries, recommend Foxy implement the first alternative.
The contribution margins for the sales
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The relationships with trade show retailers are highly valuable in that they often prove to be long term. Re-orders by retailers from trade shows occur at a 50% clip, and they will re-order twice per year. With an average order from a retailer being $569 (Table 1), and the direct material and labor cost fixed at $267, the contribution margin per order at trade shows will be $302 (Table 2).
The U.S. trade show circuit requires substantial overhead. The fixed cost of purchasing and regularly shipping of the booth, travel, promotional materials, and registration would be $94,300. Dividing that overall fixed cost by our contribution margin per order via trade shows gives us our breakeven order number of 313 orders.
However, this is not a figure that would satisfy Foxy Originals. Considering the high fixed cost and risk of touring products in a market that does have a penchant for classic jewelry (50% of Foxy’s inventory) or much brand loyalty, the owners would like to know the sales that would need to occur to hit their target profit of $100,000. To exceed their fixed costs by a margin of $100,000, Foxy would need 645 sales on the trade show circuit.
At the forefront of Foxy’s market entry plan to the U.S is expedition and exclusivity. The products need to be in the key fashion hubs (Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago) of the United States by January,
On the morning of January 17, 1993, before the annual buying trip to Germany for the 1993 Christmas season, the toy buyer for the chain of Hightower Department Stores named Julia Brown was reviewing the performance of some models of stuffed animals tested for sales during 1992. Every time Julia’s on the trip, she would buy some stuffed animals for testing. Fifty was the minimum amount the manufacturers require. Based on Julia’s years of buying experience, the tested result would give Julia a clear estimation about how many new stuffed animals she needed to order. Figure 1 in below shows the timeline of how Julia buys the toys for the company:
Triple E’s main clients will be local area businesses who require access to marketing and event planning services but have no marketing/planning departments of their own. By focusing on businesses that have these specific needs, Triple E Marketing and Events will be able to provide smaller organizations access to comprehensive and combined event planning and marketing strategies, allowing them to create brand recognition and increased profitability for their businesses.
In our second assumption, instead of using the cost of goods per cases in 1986, we try to use the percentage it counts in the total expenses which is 50.4% and to find the sales needed to break-even. The detail of the calculation is shown in the answer for questions d. The result is that 95,635, a little bit higher than the estimated sales of 90,000.
2. Considering your answer to item 1, the first three exhibits, and related introductory discussion, is it likely that the accounting system may distort product profit significantly? Why? (Ignore general, selling, and admin expense.)
add approximately 20 to 25 new stores per year for at least the next four years
Carrying out both methods discussed above meanwhile sounds good, but a new problem emerges—territory ownership. For instance, Kluger and Orol had have to pay for commission fees on all sales, if Foxy came to a trade show, say, New York while hiring a New York based sales representatives in the same time. This is an industry norm, so Foxy has to follow. The partners also considered about attending the trade shows in the major fashion hubs and sending their sales representatives to some smaller cities; however, if so, that doesn’t help Foxy to establish brand awareness in the United States, as these cities are not fashion-forward.
Exhibit 5 shows the breakdown of fixed costs. Exhibit 6 shows corresponding contribution margin for compensation based on a fixed fee as well as a 100% variable fee. If we assume Alltel would pay the talent 90% of ticket prices, which would vary slightly depending on talent, while maintaining the same facilities charge and service charge, the total contribution margin drops form $37 per paying customer to just over $15.While this is not ideal, the benefit is the reduction in up front expenses required. By going to 100% variable compensation Alltel no longer has a substantial fixed cost associated with paying the talent. Since Alltel only received ~10% of sales, we would suggest Alltel no longer handle the promoting, saving them another $20k in fixed advertising cost. The talent would now be in charge of the promotion. They would have the most to gain from the promotion as they would retain 90% of sales. Hiring a promoter would have its own ROI calculation and Alltel could certainly continue to offer the services but with a fixed price outsourced model or affiliate variable compensation model negotiable with each event. Alltel is not a true promoter and this would allow them to focus attention on their core business and let true promoters promote. The net result of this is a contribution margin 38% and a breakeven of 5264 paying customers. This is down from the previous breakeven of 8341. We would describe this process of
The women's apparel market is highly competitive. With the launch of a new active-wear line from Harrington Collection's, more and more competitors will start to realise the potential value in in producing an active-wear line of their own. The active-wear market is growing so rapidly (expected to double turnover from 2007 to 2009), that eventually all of Harrington's competitors would likely be expected to launch a line of their own, relying on existing brand loyalty and high-scale advertising campaigns to capture market share and move units.
Written Case #1: Vera Bradley in 2014: Will the Company’s Strategy Reverse Its Downward Trend?
A result on the next page shows that at sales price of $21.50, the sales quantity rises to 1,140,085 units and net profit turns to positive for the first time. Besides, if a company continues to reduce the price further, at the point of $15.50, it is where the company’s profit on product 101 is in the highest position as it gives the net profit of $3,901,908.
Due to the industry’s heavy reliance on word-of-mouth, it is assumed that the brochures will result in low conversion. However, it would help to increase Elite’s awareness within its desired market. If 20% of initial customers sign up one friend by the end of the first year, the water bottles and t-shirts would have an ROI of 2.07%. This would result in an additional $5,760 in sales.
a. Assuming the most current operational cost levels, what sales must it generate to recoup the above investment?
In vertical analysis, it is easier to see elements as a percentage of Revenue. Between 2011-12, the portion that cost of sales takes in revenue has increased however, there is a bigger deterioration in distribution cost. In 2011, 9.21% of revenue remains as profit but in 2012 this figure decreases to 8.14%. Despite reduction in costs is one of the strategies of Ted Baker(part 1.4), analysis illustrates that costs increase each year.
Using the data provided from Exhibit 3 in the case in regards to sales data broken down for each company operated store in North America we derived the figures in the table below.
As a clothing store which is focusing on local designed and European designed clothes, our products are going to be high-end, fashionable, green and unique.