Social Marketing
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
First research objective was to determine whether it is profitable for J.Crew to shift their brand focus to a ‘sustainablity’ business model instead of resuming their position in the fast fashion industry.
EEOC vs Abercrombie and Fitch, a case where a practicing Muslim Samantha Elauf, sued the clothing store from discrimination. Although she passed her interview with the store, she was not hired due to head wear that she was wearing. Elauf wears as a part of her observation of her religious practice. Abercrombie policy prohibits head wear and the maintain more of a West Coast California image. Elauf’s claim was disparate treatment from Abercrombie. She was granted $20,000 in the District Court but the 10th Circuit Court reversed that decision. The Supreme Court the appealed and ruled in an 8-1 favor of EEOC. The majority stated that Abercrombie violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, whether they had knowledge or not of her religion, they were still held liable. They concluded that an applicant need not to prove the reason for accommodation based on religious reasons. Justice believed that Abercrombie was aware of Elauf’s religion and illustrated discrimination by failure to accommodate her.
When I was in about 1st grade possibly younger, I always remember brushing my hair and dressing myself up for school because If you want to get Something done right you have to do it yourself, sorry mom. I found myself mixing and matching every possible color and pattern to be availability, and I thought I was being so fashion forward, which I wasn't.
This report is on the retail company, Abercrombie & Fitch. I will discuss what they are known for and how they provide a safe working place for their employees, vendors, and customers. I will discuss their hiring practices and minimum requirements. I provided a SWOT Analysis of their employee- employer relationships. I will discuss the controversial issues they have faced regarding ethical behavior with their employees. Finally, I will discuss what I have learned from this company and what I would change or continue doing within their business.
Forever 21 and American Eagle are two popular clothing companies among young people. According to their website, Forever 21 is the 5th largest specialty retailer in the United States and has a goal of opening 600 new stores in the next three years. 1 On the American Eagle website, it states that they are a global specialty retailer store that has over one thousand stores in six different countries and ships to over eighty countries. 2 They were founded in 1984 and 1977 respectively.
Abercrombie & Fitch, the upscale clothing retailer known for its attractive sales assistant’s and models used for stores and advertisements has a long history of racism and sexism. Starting back in 2002, the company sold shirts that were racially insensitive to Asians, marketed thongs with sexual phrases on them to pre-teens, and made men shirts that read “Female students needed for sexual research.” These products were soon removed after they caused controversy among parents and young women. The company then faced charges that its branding and hiring practices are discriminatory. Their stores allow white people to work in the front while Asians, and African Americans work in the back. The company has been sued numerous times for for religious discrimination and discrimination against handicapped customers. Abercrombie & Fitch also doesnt stock womens pants above size 10, limiting their market to only slim and petite women.
The author of this essay is a consumer of high street fashion apparel and expresses a personal interest into the findings of the research. The author hopes to obtain an advanced understanding of consumer buying behaviour in the current economical climate and compare it with their own spending habits. The strategic issues that are relevant to this topic are as follows; are there specific groups of consumers being targeted when undertaking the research, what are the consumer behaviours that are notably different as a result of the recession and how have these behaviours affected the retailers. The aim of this research project is to understand the extent the high street has been affected by changes in consumer behaviour, caused by the
Abercrombie and Fitch is widely known for placing their stores in high traffic shopping channels such as popular malls and plazas. A typical consumer would most likely find one of the brand’s main stores, Abercrombie & Fitch or Hollister Co., located in their local malls. Locating the store and products are not issues for the average consumer, but it is when they step foot into an establishment, just pass by it, would be where the problems arise. With the brand’s peak in the early 2000’s, stores were designed for the trendy target market of the time. Creating a “cool,” environment with dim lighting, extravagant décor and store fronts, upbeat music, and wall displays that would draw in “worthy,” customers. While this may have worked well for luring consumers before the recession, things have quickly led to a downward spiral after controversies continued to pile against this once mighty brand. Through the ZMET research method, the consistent negative responses to provocative models on wall displays and advertisement. Many questioned if Abercrombie & Fitch was trying to promote their merchandise or solely on who and what is acceptable to the brand. What used to bring crowds into these stores have backfired due to society becoming more socially conscious and sensitive. This led to participants informing us that they felt only people who looked a certain way are allowed to enter and were intimidated instead of feeling welcomed. The environment of all of the stores under the brand
We should primarily discuss the bigger difference between these two retailers: their Target Market. Although is very obvious at first sight, when you stop to think about it, its really interesting.
Being an upscale industry, Abercrombie and Fitch would appear to be a successful corporation. Although the company was once successful for a number of years, it’s apparent that there has been a significant decline in its overall appeal and how much revenue the company acquires each year. With just over 1,000 retail stores in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, Abercrombie and Fitch has thrived to be one of the most avid corporate extensions.
The idea of this product is to give the target market sector which are guys and females between the ages of 14 and 20 years of age dress that permits them to be agreeable and easygoing while as yet looking in trendy and stylish and keeping up a feeling of an extravagant lifestyle. By simply acquiring the things the buyers are typifying the Abercrombie and Fitch proverb of "casual luxury". It falls under the heterogeneous shopping item class, since all things sold by Abercrombie and Fitch are exclusively purchased because of buyers individual inclinations. There are whatever other brand that offer the same or comparable items, some at a great deal lower costs, yet the purchaser buys Abercrombie items because of individual inclination. For example, I personally love its jeans the way it fits on me. The objective business sector falls between those ages since 14 years of age is normally when a youngster starts dressing themselves and looking for themselves, so actually they need to dress like different children in school, or their relatives or siblings. That need to dress as in vogue and "cool" as other people later transforms into a genuine affection for the brand which makes the back to class and holidays season the busiest for the organization since that is the point at which
Like the way we just saw that 60% of the online purchasers are women, Similarly with changing social structure and society becoming increasingly contemporary, purchasing garments is no longer the forte of only women. Today men are becoming increasingly brand conscious and trend savvy. Now let us try to identify the key drivers that influence the decision making process for garment purchase which is different for men and women.
During the information search stage of their decision-making process, the consumer stated that they constantly looked at online shops and magazines to improve their personal understanding of fashion. It was noted that the consumer’s awareness set consisted of ten different brands. However, the size of her
The age is firstly included. Though the target respondents are Chinese young consumers, the researcher still want to have a further look at the difference between different age intervals of the young group. The gender is expected to be recorded because male consumers may have different attitudes towards luxury digital branding with female consumers. Also, the region of living is included since the economy conditions as well as the engagement of digital technologies are different in cities of different tiers. In addition, the education level will be specified the five general degree which are high school, college degree, Bachelor’s, Master, and Doctoral degree, which may affect their understanding in digital branding. Finally, the frequency of luxury consumption is included as one of the measurements of consumers’ involvement in digital fashion branding.
The fashion industry especially the retail business has not received full exploitation and therefore an opportunity exists in the bringing affordable quality products to the proximity of customers. Many retail shops stock women only fashion products excluding other sensitive groups such as children. Therefore, Trendy Fashions will house a chain of products that cater for the needs of both women and children. The reason why this class of people is chosen is because they have been identified to shop regularly for clothes compared to men.