Retail Marketing Plan That Brings Growth and Success for an Organisation

1.SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

1.1 Internal Analysis

SWOT analysis helps the organisation to find strengths and weaknesses. Its strength is enthusiasm and originality of products. Weaknesses include limitation in financial resources and its opportunities are using advanced technologies to maintain customer baseline. Its threat are competitors.

SWOT analysis

Strengths :

Uniqlo's strengths include visionary leader, branding, innovations, sound operational management and organisational culture. Uniqlo itself is a modern Japanese company which does sell of casual wears at reasonable prices. Thus, its styling and branding is constant along with its positioning to obtain popularity (Andrews and Shimp, 2017). It also offers cost benefit and agility in operational strategy. It possess value chain stable relationships with suppliers to maintain streamline inventory.

Weaknesses:

Its weaknesses include weather sensitive apparel and supply chain issues. It also has inability to penetrate successfully at international level (West, Ford and Ibrahim, 2015). Uniqlo is striving to break in the leading retailers in US like Tommy Hilfiger and Gap

Opportunities:

Uniqlo Opportunities are new segments and fashion that generate on regular basis. It primarily make presence in women's and men's wear but is still making garments for kids. It has its promising growth in Asia where it can capitalise and increase its market.

Threats:

Threats of this company are those which are harmful for the progress and growth to business. Competitors comes in threat of Uniqlo such as Zara, Tommy Hilfiger and United Colours of Benetton.

1.2 External Analysis:

Pestle analysis

To consider effective results, following elements are included that create impact on business results:

1. Political factors: Political factors influence a lot to the functioning of various departments of Uniqlo. Domestic policy has been considered that play by government that make political stability which shows positive sign.Political situation influence Uniqlo markets because Latin, Asian regions are not stable. At 'Quiet Period' company has to take necessary actions that affect share price.
2. Economic factors: Rapid growth of the country create positive impact on desired outcomes which would be beneficial to increases solution for new structural problems. Vietnam is competitive towards power generation so that it kept with pace in exports and decline contribution of productivity. Logistic costs in real estate prices also increases so that skills' shortage (Homburg, Jozić and Kuehnl, 2017). As per the more widespread work performances, difficulties will be reduced that show domestic development activities. Increases in currency assists to develop the biggest source of foreign development. Huge profits increased Uniqlo brand strengths and its future economic growth in 2015. FR sales also raised its performance in positive manner.
3. Social factors: Uniqlo addresses economic and social issues in combined manner and is facing international community with its ethical approach to business. For children it generated a fund of $ 10 million for children as 'Clothes for Smiles' and specially for professional tennis player Novak Djokovic (Ayers and Odegaard, 2017). It helps a lot in fulfilling children's dream. This group established social business in 2010 in Bangladesh which one of the purest countries of the world where this company addressed many social problems like sanitation, poverty and education.
4. Technological Factor: Technology is one of the crucial competency requirement and strategic capability that is concerned with availability of resources for the progress of company. Uniqlo always invest in technology to get efficiency in production and retain labour intensively. Through computer system, print designs, rough sketches are warn and store information for future is retrieved for Group departments (Babin and Zikmund, 2015). All tangible and intangible elements that enable continuous and daily improvement for the development of Uniqlo's strategic intent.
5. Legal Factor: Uniqlo follows all legal laws. Various laws like Employment law are implemented to secure the rights of employees and customers. It enhances administrative efficiency such as Employee Health and Reduced working Hours and Work Life balance. Company has established FR counselling Centre in order to control all legal and legislative requirements. It also focuses on the well-being of employees that involves accident prevention of workplace. In order to maximize productivity Uniqlo has provided comfortable working environment to their co-workers.>

Financial situation of the company

Uniqlo has set record breaking annual results with international operations by helping home market of Vietnam. Suppliers of the company has increased to 40% which has been listed in 2017 in first publication of Vietnam. Chinese producers still rank Vietnam at number 2 position production hub which provides quality wise workers and stable political environment. It has also obtained huge suppliers in Bangladesh and Indonesia. In Vietnam fast fashion has showed that market has really changed from last 4 to 5 years from international organization. It would need almost 10 years to change completely (Blut and et.al., 2015). There are high demands from Vietnamese customers for products with affordable prices that can be met through portable sources.

2. MARKETING OBJECTIVES

The marketing objectives of Uniqlo are discussed as under :

Business Strategy and Objectives of Uniqlo:

Strategy and objectives of the company should be SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound.

Smart objectives of Uniqlo are:

Specific: The objectives of Uniqlo should be specific enough so that the management can be clear and able to achieve it. It should be simple and significant so that it can be easy to achieve.

Measurable: Objectives of Uniqlo are measurable so that it can be possibly achieved.

Achievable: They are attainable and should be achieved by employees (Burke, van Stel and Thurik, 2016). The entire workforce should be clear about the goals and could easily communicate with upper management.

Relevant: Goals of Uniqlo must relate to resources and should be realistic. They must be result -oriented and original.

Time bound: Goals should be accomplished within time limit else they are not of any use. They should not exceed the time limit.

Leaders and managers should know what the mission and vision of the company. Strategy should be broad and based on providing quality products to customers (Gillespie and Riddle, 2015). Its objectives in first 3 years include opening of flagship store in Melbourne and attaining $18.5 million revenue. Then it Sydney it opened second Flagship store that achieved $37.5 million revenue. It made total purchase of 350,000. Lastly, third and fourth store in Gold coast and Sydney was opened to achieve $76.2 million revenue that made 700,000 of total purchase. Targets should be achieved within timeline. Its business strategies and objectives are :

1. Mobile communications are considered as centre: Companies can easily connect to their end users through electronic devices.
2. Transparency develops brand-customer relationships: Social media helps in transparency of marketing plans and objectives of companies. Many organisations which are not truthful have to pay the price afterwards (Chernev, 2015). They afterwards lose their loyalty and also customer baseline.
3. Social would become Internet : Social media in Vietnam is growing its impact on many small scale companies and more brands are completely transition to marketing efforts of social channels.
4. Best brands will become product companies rather than service companies: Product companies thrive for innovative and fresh products while service companies focus on customer satisfaction (Babin and Zikmund, 2015). It aims at customer renewal and its retention. Product companies would efficiently work to create values for their customers in the future.

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION:

Customer can be acquired through digital technology easily. Giving online presence on valuable content improves sales and productivity of company. This is the best way to boost up any business. Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) connection can be maintained between customers and marketers. Important information should be provided and updated regularly on website. Tactics of SEO involves back linking and keyword optimization (Tripathy, and Das, 2015). Long-tail keywords and local keywords should be focussed by the organisation to maintain customers (Cusumano, Kahl and Suarez, 2015). Another strategy method be developing a referral strategy that empower users who are referred to other users. For example any discount offered to a particular user could be offered other user on behalf of the first one. The, quality content should be properly maintained. It develops a trust between customer and marketers. There should be trustworthy expert in niche or any organisation.

There are various ways through which content can be published. It includes blogs, email and newsletter. Another way to capture customer is to develop multimedia in order to facilitate this process and promote brand. Videos created attract more customers and make them adhere to a particular website. Customers targeted should be properly figured out. All the business analysis and product development should be implied on this segment of group. In this process it is necessary to find out right type of customers. They finally determine the nature of products which should be purchased from manufacturers. Uniqlo tries to roll out new advertising campaign across stores in Australia and that goes viral which attracts new customers into stores. Customers take the pics of Billboard which are captures the code and connection is made to campaign's website (Fernie and Sparks, 2014). Almost 250 customers have used codes every day all across billboards and obtained free Heattech top that can be redeemed in store with coupon. Various other customers campaigns are introduced like Umood to attract them to stores.

CUSTOMER RETENTION

Customer retention aims through brand support, loyalty to one company or product. According to survey Uniqlo has loosened up 20% of its customers by failing in its customer relationship. It should be improved to 80%. it retains customers by engaging them in daily routine's and ensure its involvement on websites. It encourages branding strategy which can be done by feeling 'local' everywhere. It tries to focus narrow market such as middle-aged market who like shop at low costs, laid back styles and like easy access (Gillespie and Riddle, 2015). Uniqlo focuses on 'Heattech' line of winter wear which are not stylish and goes with innovation trend at every step. It believes that engagement is the major feature for retention of customers and traditional channels are used to create blend with consumer's social life so that everybody can go with routine persona of the organisation. Company's website gets updated on regular basis and there is two way engagement with them which make them feel special. Their demands are prioritised and accepted at every stage.

New CSR initiative has been launched by Uniqlo known as 'Clothes for Smiles' with celecrities so that awareness can be increased. On traditional social media it catches the attention of customers by employing them. It believes in providing excellent customer service and follow retailer loyalty program. Programs conducted are regularly rewarded. Social consciousness is made capturing people of all age groups and of all gender like men, women and kids. It uses concepts like utility, climate, quality, comfort that drives the evolution of new and innovative casuals. These factors influence customers and make them feel better. Like this, they can select apparels through their own choice and head towards store. Brand positioning, style and quality also captures their attention and finally increase its productibity.

3. MARKETING STRATEGIES

Marketing objectives of Uniqlo are affected by environmental factors like pollution, wastage of products, take use of renewable resources etc. Employees work under wild condition at high temperature and it is the prior responsibility to take protective measures by the company for them. Thus, it should work in such a way so that its goals are not affected by issues generated by environment (Grönroos, 2017). People like healthy and pollution free environment. So companies try to make products which are disposable and eco-friendly. Hence, both social and environmental factors influence marketing objectives and its strategies. Internal environment factor includes suppliers, low and government, customers and competitors while on the other hand external environment includes socio-cultural factors, economic dimensions and technology (Pride and Ferrell, 2016). Therefore, social element is a part of environmental factor. Socio-cultural factors include values, attitudes that affect organization. For the success of any company it must have knowledge of all customs and religion.

The Strategies that are followed by Uniqlo are discussed as under :

Uniqlo follows various strategies for successful business in Western Market:

1. Product Strategy: It offers affordable, high-quality, stylish and focus on Uniqlo's wide series of basic products in different varieties and specially designed in Heatteach fabric.
2. Brand Strategy: It innovates products and position desirable and stylish retailer so that it can aim at redefining relationship between price and quality (Tripathy and Das, 2015).
3. Service Strategy : In Japanese service standards Training staff maintains Uniqlo culture.
4. Pricing Strategy: End prices are quite higher in Japan which shows penetration strategy there.
5. Placing Strategy: To maintain its Flagship stores Uniqlo seeks visible and central locations.

Strategies for branding

There are some strategies which are being followed by Uniqlo. They are being discussed as under:

1. It follows a tag 'totally ignore fashion' rather than stalking fast fashion like oyher competitors. It uses philosophy 'Made for All' in which products are positioned to transcend age, gender, ethnicity and other defined people.
2. It follows a system of making a clear brand promise (Stein and Ramaseshan, 2015). It believes in creating successful brands that support operational and organisational structure that facilitate application of various strategies that ensures brand promises.
3. It has a unique company culture and definite visionary leadership. It focuses on customer experience, teamwork and innovation.
4. Uniqlo aims at efficiency in supply chain and product development approach. It is a technological company and not a fashion. It makes apparel common by embracing technology in trend driven and cyclical way.

SEGMENTATION, TARGETING AND POSITIONING (STP)

Segmentation on retail strategy are demographic, geographic, psycho graphic, behavioural, benefit strategies. Demographic segmentation is widest and simplest type used by companies in which gender, occupation, religion, nationality and age of population is considered. Behavioural segmentation divides population on the basis of usage, decision-making. Here behaviour of individual is concerned (Peppers and Rogers, 2016).

Perceptual map:

Perceptual Mapping is used by marketers so that company's product line, product can be easily displayed. These are also called as market maps. These are used to understand the behaviour of customers and clusters of business.

Implementation of 4C Marketing Model

Uniqlo uses 4Cs Marketing model in which consumers are prioritised.

This model suggest Consumer needs and wants which aims at production of things that consumer needs. Second 'C ' is 'Cost to satisfy' relates to the price of commodities. When price of particular product rise then customers go for low price of goods. Thirdly consumer should be convenient to buy which is possible if that product is available on his/her suitable place and at right time. Lastly there should be effective communication between consumer and organisation. Another marketing strategy involves perceptual mapping in which customers ideas are mapped on a chart. It includes packaging, pricing and experience of respondents (Cusumano, Kahl and Suarez, 2015). Thus, it includes perfect analysis of demands and needs of customers. Its demographic targeted audience are between 18-24 old and includes both male and female. Psycho graphic includes young, stylish and trendy apparels that motivates siblings and friends. These brand should be affordable and provide good and best quality.

Target Market

Targeting is based on groups of buyers fron entire market which the organisation wants to satisfy. Uniqlo will target thinkers, experiencers and strivers in Generations X and y ranging from 18-40. Younger consumers are less admired while older consumers are more considered and working professionals. In Australia international students represent from Asia in niche market. It has targeted many middle class people and various other classes by manufacturing casuals and following current trends. It has also segmented market according to the needs of customers.

Positioning of Uniqlo

Positioning is important tool in retail industry. It is assembled on business data and search for composition of chain of words like distinction, differentiation ans similarity. All advantages are presented to targeted audience through positioning of products. Researchers determine their particular target through focus groups and market research. This helps them to determine which product are important to the targeted audience (Homburg, Jozić and Kuehnl, 2017). It is an important component of marketing plan. A product may include secondary audience who can be interested in the product. This can be done through various channels and advertising like pricing of products and packaging of similar ones (Fernie and Sparks, 2014).

They just go for opinions to gather information from network. Effectiveness can be brought positioning of products by relying on the views of potential customers so that actual speculation can be done. Market research helps in determining that how much a product is popular among customers. It also answers the question on how much customers use that product. They also show their interest on the pricing and packaging of commodities.

Competitors

Competitors of Uniqlo are Topshop and Zara which are leading retail sector in market. Possibly H&M will be new competitor in the future and more standard products will be offered in Australian market. They offer stylish and lavish clothing at affordable clothing at reasonable prices but are of higher quality and marketing is done with high -tech and high quality fabrics are used.

Market entry strategy:

Uniqlo has faced challenges from Canada and so it has made many Canadian strategies to enter into retail market. It wants to change its business in Canadian environment. It has opened many stores in U.S., Malaysia, Russia and has attracted customers in the main markets of these nations (Jenkins and Forsythe, 2015). It follows strategy of e-commerce and connecting through customer-to customer and has its own brand appeal.

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