Background
Alta Moda is an urban fashion store that retails women ware; most of its targeted customers are women in their late twenties to mid-thirties who are fashion conscious. This is a late entrant into the market, and since its entrance, it has experienced some good response from its market segment results that are purely attributable to the fact that the chain store has very effective marketers. The store target women as its customers, this is part of the market that is very sensitive to the type of clothing that they buy and would not condone any dissatisfaction (Albert 2006).
The store has had all these uniqueness of its clients in mind and has continued to produce to the market tailor-made, unique styles targeting each and every determined customer of the company. This has, in turn, resulted in the tremendous growth of the firm that has opened five branches. It has currently opened its sixth, Toorak road south Yarra. This new branch is in response to the demand for the products of the firm.
One year later, the returns from the new store are to be evaluated, this evaluation has been necessitated by the fact that the company needs to grow yet again and venture out in other areas as well. But it would be prudent to determine which collection release received the most welcoming response and how each and every released performed in the region. This would help establish how the other branches that are to be opened will operate and where they will be situated (Donaldson 2007). Alta Moda has four major releases in every year, and these are largely dictated by the seasonality.
Marketing
The first market strategy that Alta Mad has continued to use over the years is that they identified a single portion of the market on which they capitalized. This is a strategy that when manipulated properly, would normally result in positive performance just has been witnessed in the case of Alta Moda. The market was first determined on the: from broad to specific tactic (Alexander, Britton & Jorissen 2010). The first broad category was generally everyone as everyone dresses, then this was narrowed to women as they have more likelihood to purchase clothing than men do. This was further narrowed to the employed who are within the ages of late twenties to mid-thirties. It is at this stage that women feel a sense of freedom that is coupled with some independence brought about with the fact that they are at this stage getting employed. They, therefore, do group shopping and impulse buying is more rampant on them. Alta Mad understood this concept and has in the past tried to diversify in style, fashion and confidence that in one way or another every single woman who walks into the store would leave with her needs catered for.
To enhance brand awareness, the firm has often carried out extensive advertising with social media being a major player in this. The firm keeps Facebook and twitter accounts that it uses to monitor the responses from the market, and it is from these responses that it introduces newer stocks while abolishing those that did not perform effectively. During the quarterly releases, the film invites some of its esteemed clients and other stakeholders in marketing such as the media and holds a cocktail party. This has normally yielded positive results as some of the best magazines in the country such as Forbes magazine have picked on some of the store’s collection on their fashion review columns and this goes a long way in enhancing publicity.
The phenomenon of holding a list of some of the stores loyal customers have also worked positively. Some of these customers get invited to the cocktail party and the sale of the brands immediately after release has normally been on the rise (Richard 2003). They get some discounts on some of their preferred brands, and this helps in expanding this list. To help determine the esteemed customers, the chain store offers smart cards to its customers with which the collect reward points for every one hundred dollars they spend. The points are later be redeemed to get some complimentary dressings. This has indeed worked as currently there are over one million cardholders all over the country.
Calculations
From a market survey, it became evident that the value of its loyal customer increased for three years by 12% each year after which it began declining at 17%.
To determine the lifetime value of these customers:
- The women are in this 28-36 age bracket that is eight years of productivity to the firm.
- The LTV at the end of the first year was: $ 5715 this given the trend of a three year appreciation than a depreciation, at the end of the five years of operation at which the value of a customer expirers , the value on the first top box becomes: $ 3811
- At a re buy rate of 80% for the first and 55%for the second.
- This implies that from a given brand bought by a customer the likelihood of them coming back to buy yet another is as stipulated above. If the value of the first box was $ 3811, then from the resale it is likely to fetch $ 3048.8 profit while the second box would fetch $ 2096.05.
Should the re buy rate increase or decrease by ten percent, the effect on the profit of the re buy would record a corresponding ten percent increase and decrease respectively. This would reflect as follows:
- 10% profit would mean 110% of the buying price and this is 110% of the average value of a top box after the five and a half years is going to be $ 4192.1.
- When the value is decreased by ten percent this would mean a ten percent decrease on the original buying price that would be 90% of the buying price and this would result in: $ 3429.9
Should the life of a customer increase by another six years, this would thus result in six more years of productivity to the firm. If one loyal customer in one normal viable life time lifetime give the firm an average of one million dollars then adding six more years into her life would mean a sixth of a million more on profit to the firm.
Observations
From the above market analysis that was carried out on the sixth branch at Yarra roads, it became evident that:
- The women who do shopping in this store and therefore the target age group of women in general have a tendency to take part in group shopping as most of the women within the duration of study were ion small groups.
- Women would refer other to the store and this is responsible for the high number of new customer that the store recorded within the time of study.
- There is a tendency of the shopping sprees that women get engaged in to continue well past the thirty five age limit set by the store (Badaracco 2003). The store initially set their target customers to fall between the twenty six to thirty eight age brackets but as observed even more aged women who were well past the thirty eight years still come to the store.
- The cocktail idea of releasing brands was of good impact to the store. This is mainly because it was observed that there was an eight percent likelihood of those in attendance at the party to buy from the store within the first two weeks of the brands being released into the market. The method of invitation which was through post cards was also effective as the post cards would reach the target destinations in time and had a higher possibility of the client who in turn would attend the party.
Conclusion
From the study, the following conclusions are factual and in deed true:
- More and more women well past the age of thirty eight still come to shop at the store and this would go on till they get to their mid forties provided the brands in the store fitted them. This is majorly because when one develops a sense of belonging at a certain place it becomes very hard to replace that feeling (Jeffery 2001). These older customers had developed a sense of belonging within the store through other branches in other locations. It is therefore hard for this mindset to be replaced by age. All that they do is try and stay within the body sizes that are offered at the store.
- The level of advertising that the company takes part in was effective just for the already existing branches of the store. This however, would require some improving if the firm was to thrive a little longer and expand by increasing the number of branches it presently has.
Recommendations
The age bracket criteria of defining the market should be abolished and another developed. This is because it is retrogressive women buy clothes depending on their sizes and not age. The size and sense of fashion alone are enough to determine the market that one would successfully exploit (Stefan, Christof & Jochen 2008). There were quite a number of clients who were observed purchasing clothes from the store using their parent’s credit cards, this was a clear indication that even the younger population were worth targeting in a lager market scale.
There is need to increase the awareness of the brand in the market, this is only done through increased advertising. There is thus need for the firm to explore other media for advertising especially the social media that offers the customer-client relationship on a more interpersonal manner. This would help grab the part of the market that is technology conscious as well.
Expansion is best undertaken through diversification (Bracey & Culver 2009), it is therefore necessary for the firm to diversify in it target market by venturing in other market sections such as children and even the male wares. Most women go shopping accompanied by the men in their lives. At the age bracket targeted by the firm, most women are going steady in relationships and therefore the influence that the men have in their shopping decision is of significance.
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