Video Case Study Analysis
ARTI MUNSHI
Levi’s Not by Jeans Alone
With other companies starting to encroach upon the Jeans market share, Levi’s decided to introduce a new product. With the goal to gain profits, Levi’s pursued diversification with the new product. This product was formal clothing for men.
Levi’s divided the consumers into five segments based on demographics, attitudes and beliefs. Q2 and Q1 appeared to be desirable target segments, however, Levi’s decided to focus on the Q2 consumers, the classic independent males. These consumers were well-dressed, cared about their appearance, shopped alone and mostly at specialty stores. They weren’t price sensitive and preferred wool/wool blends in conservative colors.
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Levi’s decided to place their product in department stores as they had good relations with the retailers due to their volume sales of jeans. They did not have any real relationship with the specialty stores where the independent male shopped. Rather than placing their new products which would be considered as high-end in these specialty stores and where they would be among the lower price range, they chose to place their products in the department stores where their products showed a deviation from the regular Levi formula and were considered very pricy as compared to other high-end department store brands such as Haggar’s. This price raised some concerns among the retailers as they were unsure if Levi’s formal wear would move out of the stores at a required pace. Also, due to price-quality inference, if Levi’s was placed in a specialty store, the Q2 customer might prefer to buy a more expensive product. Levi tried to sell these formal clothes in the same stores as their casual clothes for the same segment of customers. Customers saw these formal clothes at the same place priced higher than the casuals, and therefore found them to be expensive.
Due to the above reasons and lack of promotion, Levi’s achieved only 65% of their sales target. They promoted the wrong product under their brand, for the wrong price at the wrong place. They failed to understand the needs of their customers.
Levi’s would have been able to avoid these mishaps if they changed their target
Listed below are statements about shopping behavior for clothes and clothing fashions. Please check one box for each statement to indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each
For the company to ensures success in its operations there is need to cultivate customer loyalty and facilitate efficient supplies, differentiator linkage between operations and buyers must be put in place. This will be facilitated through some ways. To cater for customer needs the company will have to ensure it adopts a competitive pricing strategy against the existing competitors and new entrants in the market. The company has a lean pricing policy and to take advantage of its off- price apparel strategy. The customer’s loyalty has to be sustained through the low prices they enjoy
Next, following the framework, the company must evaluate whether the product will be successful. Researching the company’s competition as well as the average market share could give insight to whether certain styles of high-end children’s clothing would be successful in the current market. Also, researching potential threats to business will be useful in designing a product that, both, fills the needs of the customers and offers features that can be protected by either a patent or trade
For people who wants to buy clothing in Myer, they usually go shopping with friends or family, so they could get some suggestions from others. When people making decisions of buy new clothes, usually they have little knowledge of how the cloth will looks like on them, so they need to try them on, this process often take a long time. The influcences at the points of sales of these products will be whether customers like the style or not, the suggestions from friends, families and salesperson, and whether customers think the product worth the price (Rahman, Rahaman, Jensen, & Gällstedt 2008, p. 42-43).
Of the hundreds of named brand clothing that form part of the retail and fashion industry I chose to compare, for my analysis, Abercrombie & Fitch, Forever 21, American Eagle, and H&M. These stores are prominent, well-known for selling apparel, shoes, and accessories by the means of offering sales and promotions to their customers. This is a clever strategy for attracting customers, allowing them to believe that they bought goods at affordable, convenient prices – and not to mention the prestigious name prescribed to the clothing brands. Using keyhole.co as my main source, I obtained relevant and valuable information regarding the status of these brands. My intentions were to compare a period of 14 days, however, due to the limited access that I received from my free trial, the program only allowed me to see fewer of the dates than I anticipated. I want to take this opportunity and mention ahead of time that due to the various and distinctive products that are sold from these stores, when looking for the “spending capacity” I decided to focus on shirts/ jeans for men and women and compare the prices among them since each of these retailers carry those items and as a way to make this report easier to contrast and comprehend. Also, when approaching the section of “setting”, I screen-shotted some of the images on Instagram and made them into a collage to separate the type of clothes and trends that each of these brands sell currently. In the following modules
People indulge in clothes shopping every day and often do not consider the changes that occurred throughout time that led to the development of mass produced clothing for both men and women. As a result of the Civil War, the production of clothing shifted from homemade clothing to clothing mass produced in factories. After the Civil War, Urbanization along with new developments, such as advertising and the new, wealthy urban class, increased the demand for mass produced women’s clothing and clothing stores that made clothing readily available.
2. Richard M. Johns (2006). The Apparel Industry. 2nd ed. UK, London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.. 1-124.
Plus-size apparel becomes more popular these days and since this country’s average women size is 14, a growing number of clothing companies are trying to produce more garments of these sizes. Not only it would cater to people’s needs, but also means more profit. However, one of Gap’s divisions, Old Navy, is reported charging extra for its women’s plus-size jeans by huge margin. What more upsetting was, men’s plus-size jeans were priced in the same range as the regular ones, which contrasted from the women’s where the prices were charged higher by $10 to $15. Not only that, the men’s jeans are placed in the same section regardless size on Old Navy’s website, while the women’s are placed in two separate sections – regular section and plus-sized section. This company’s pricing transparency really made customers to question Gap’s integrity. The consumer emphasized that Old Navy was engaged in sexism and sizeism towards women.
This expansion demonstrates how the luxury industry is now run by massive corporations whose focus is only on growth, visibility, brand awareness, advertising, and most importantly, PROFITS! With growth and expansion, has come a decrease in quality and rarity. The luxury garments produced are mostly not handmade but are even outsourced to large factories in places such as China and Turkey. Also, to meet quarterly turnover projections, “designers churn(ed) out increasingly trendy collections of clothes, handbags, and shoes.” (Thomas, Pg. 246) With hundreds of new stores around the globe the surplus of designer labeled merchandise is immense hence, the proliferation of outlet malls.
The company tries to establish a new approach to engage with their customers, and the price needs to reflect that. Customers do not pay the premium price for the jeans, but rather for the lifestyle that those products reflect.
8. Do you think there is a core image of Levi’s that can survive across the wide range of prices and outlets that it operates in? What is it?
Levi Strauss & Co.’s Women’s wear Division markets several lines of products but their recent introduction of the Women’s 501® jeans have been particularly successful. The marketing strategy for the new product launch was based on studies identifying two consumers Clusters as primary targets. The first consumer group consisted of women whose median age was 25, who had sophisticated tastes and were appreciative of the latest styles, the second group consisted of
There Is a similar relation among the clothes. Several customers shop there based on the quality and prices as well as the features associated with the products. An advantage of the store is that it has a wide product mix and various offering in different categories and all these can be located at one place. This attracts a wide variety of customers. In line with their positioning of offering quality, trendy products, the brand is consistently updating its product line. The brand does not focus on innovation but rather on always leading trends. In relation to the product life cycle, clothing has a short life span from the first to last stage as tastes change easily. For this reason, it is important to constantly anticipate consumer tastes and preferences prior to launching a product so as to retain and possibly build customers loyalty. It is also necessary to develop a successful marketing strategy to display product offerings.
Price is an important factor in Burberry as price affects the value that costumers perceive they get from buying a product (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). Burberry uses competitive pricing similar to its competitors which produces a psychological effect on Burberry customers (Jacobson, n.d). If Burberry for example lowered its price dramatically then customers may believe the quality has decreased and may presume it’s not worthy to be named a luxury brand. However by being expensive it suggest better quality and desire to sustain its customers as well as making there products seem exclusive.
For years, Louis Vuitton enjoyed high profit margins from the luxury market in Japan until other competitors such as Prada and Gucci entered the market. Counterfeiting also became a threat to the firm’s brand by satisfying consumer demand at lower prices. Other external global environmental problems included highly priced products, limited availability in stores only, and a heavy dependency on the Japanese market (Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p. 14-18). Moreover, “the after-shocks of the global recession were a threat to Louis Vuitton’s luxury business in Japan”, and Japanese women became less interested in the brand’s products (Pearce & Robinson, 2013, p. 14-18). Alternatively, Louis Vuitton could “reinvent itself and regain what used to be its well-attested