Company Background
The proposed company to be formed is to be called Cloth Monger. The domain name, ClothMonger.com is available and can be easily purchased and utilized for the creation and maintenance in order to meet the corporate objectives. Therefore, this company will create a platform where many people will be able to log in, make orders and pay through an ecommerce system like a credit card or direct bank debit.
The company will focus on affordable clothes. This will include sourcing for clothes from China, Asia and other countries directly and also selling from popular brands that are known for presenting fashionable clothes for each season at affordable prices in Europe and North America.
The corporate brand will be grown and expanded in order to begin making unique clothes under the Cloth Monger brand. These will be cheap clothes for winter and summer which will target young people and provide an easy and simple set of clothes for people to purchase and get delivered to them.
The company will source for products from third world countries and from cheap manufacturers. However, the focus will be on relationships that will focus on getting consumers to build the highest levels of interest and maintain a high level of quality in order to provide the best level of service.
Customer Value
Customers want to buy clothes regularly. They want clothes for their families and for themselves. Customers also want products that help them to meet the requirements of each season. Therefore, they want to stay current and relevant and also ensure they dress appropriately for the season – whether winter or summer. Therefore, in order to achieve the best of results, there will be the provision of what consumers what in terms of:
Fashion
Relevance to the season
Affordable
Effectively delivered and
Diverse.
These different attributes will be put together in order to ensure that the company provides the best level of sales. The consumers will be given an opportunity to compare prices and also provide important information that will help consumers in order to achieve the best and most appropriate kind of results.
In order to achieve the best of results in terms of meeting consumers’ needs, there is the need for the elements of the marketing mix to be carried out in the best way, and this includes:
Product
Place
Price &
Promotion
The products that will be given to consumers are affordable clothes that are made in the most fashionable way and form. This will include the best and most fashionable clothes that will be available in each season.
The place of sale will primarily over the Internet. The online store of Cloth Monger will be linked to a quick delivery system that will have connections to various strategic warehouses in the target market of the state. This will include the provision of major warehouses where delivery will be done in order to reach the consumers in not less than 24 hours.
The prices will be extremely cheap. This will seek to target the poorest people in the state and also provide services from the most affordable places and points. This include products made in foreign countries and third world nations that will provide the ability for people to purchase and acquire them without having to spend too much money. The price will be targeted at Chinese and third world markets. And the model of producing from these poorer nations and stocking them in large quantities in the state will be done in order to keep the cost of production at the minimum and ensure that the ultimate price will be low and less expensive.
Promotion will be made through online marketing systems. This includes social media, adverts on websites, videos and others. This will be complemented with normal traditional adverts on television, radio and print media to expose the Cloth Monger brand. This will make the brand popular and known. On the basis of this, there could be changes and modifications to ensure that the company improves its stakes and achieves optimum results.
Industry Analysis
The e-commerce industry is a broad term that describes the online version of shops and stores that provide an automated version of sales to consumers. This almost always involve the use of an online environment which has been adapted to reflect the traditional brick-and-mortar shop. The main pointers and elements of e-commerce include the following pointers:
The consumer: who uses various electronic devices to shop for products and services on an e-commerce website;
The device: this is about the kind of devices on which the service is provided and how it is manipulated to provide sales;
The selling: this is about the actual transactions and case-by-case activities that are meant to sell and make products available to clients;
The merchant: the in-store sales done by a seller to the consumer through an online system and process;
The marketing: this is a people-oriented system whereby sellers provide ways of selling products to consumers that are of an appropriately high quality;
The advertising: this is about how the merchants get in touch with consumers and make their products and service known to these consumers;
The service: the customer experience in purchasing the products and services on the Internet or an online portal
These pointers lay the foundation for defining the extent to which the e-commerce industry is positioned and carries out its activities and processes. The main element of Cloth Monger is the ability to identify a class of young and computer-savvy consumers who are willing and able to purchase their products and make the best of them. The proposition is to enable as many devices as possible to provide products of Cloth Monger to consumers and enable them to make purchases.
The advertising as proposed above is to blend the offers of traditional media with electronic media including the use of social media and Google ads amongst others to connect with clients. This will help to provide a means of marketing communication and help the staff and the clients to stay in touch.
Also, customer care is an important part of the attempt to attain competitive advantage in this industry. This include the provision of a database to gather information of clients and review it regularly to maintain a constant contact with these consumers.
Another aspect of examining the e-commerce industry in which Cloth Mongers will operate is in the context of competitors. This involve the kind of people offering clothes and similar alternatives in the industry. One method of doing this is the Porter’s Five Force model which provides information about competitors including:
Threat of new entrants;
Bargaining power of suppliers;
Bargaining power of buyers;
Presence of substitutes &
Competitive rivalry.
The threat of new entrants is serious because it is fairly easy for any investor to set up an online portal with or without stocks and sell clothes. Therefore, it is necessary for Cloth Monger to find a way of creating a website that is unique and differentiated and has numerous strengths.
The bargaining power of suppliers is quite strong because Cloth Mongers seek to purchase from a number of affordable clothing manufacturers and make them available to consumers. Therefore, the bargaining power of these manufacturers is huge enough to cause controls. To limit these controls, Cloth Mongers can rely on many suppliers from different parts of the world.
The bargaining power of buyers is limited because there are many buyers and they are not likely to wield power so much. In order to keep this going, there is the need for Cloth Mongers to pursue new customers regularly at all times.
The presence of substitutes is a major risk for Cloth Mongers because there are many substitutes ranging from shops to other boutiques that provide clothes to consumers. This is a major threat and must be countered by the presentation of the benefits and advantages that Cloth Monger’s online shopping can give to consumers – convenience, reliability and fast processing.
Competitive rivalry is huge. There are numerous online clothes sales outlets like Amazon, Zara and others who provide clothes online. These competitors continue to run major campaigns and processes that could put Cloth Mongers at odds. Since they pursue the same market directly, it is necessary for Cloth Mongers to target the consumers directly with a better offer that the competitors do not present to consumers.
Managerial Perspectives
The idea is to present a better and more sophisticated system of purchasing clothes online. This will include the various strengths which Cloth Mongers can present:
Improved delivery services;
Affordable clothes that are not normally available in the state;
Focus on the local markets and instead of building national brands like Amazon, Cloth Monger can focus on a local market and build a relationship with these local consumers;
Utilization of direct communication tactics that enable the company to connect with local customers and achieve major results over a given period of time.
Invest heavily in discounts and lowballing to ensure that consumers can build a relationship with the company and this can be the foundation for the growth of a strong local brand.
Build and expand a strong database for the growth of the brand and ensure a strong relationship with the consumers and grow this relationship.
Aside these strengths and potential for the activities, there are numerous weaknesses that could come up and this include:
The lack of a brand image at the level of larger and more popular entities
The need for a lot of capital to build a strong brand and corporate image
Major contracts and agreements with clothing suppliers which must remain competitive.
Opportunities and Threats
In the face of current realities, there are some opportunities and threats which must be viewed more critically. The opportunities include:
The growing economic situation with no slowdown in sight;
Increase reliance on technology and new outlets for sales and marketing;
Ability to achieve a strong and reliable customer relations database;
Presence of more options for differentiation.
There are some threats which include:
The presence of many competitors and options for potential consumers;
The lack of experience in the industry and the possibility of it being abused;
The inability to put together a strong-enough marketing team to promote the products.
Recommended Market Strategy
A good market plan has to be specific, measurable, attainable, reliable and timely (SMART). To this end the following strategies are recommended:
Customer segmentation: The focus of Cloth Monger will be on working class to middle-income consumers who live in this state. This will include young people who earn little and poor and middle-class families.
Timeline: The idea is to increase sales per annum for the next five years and then stabilize the brand and its operations;
Market Communication: This will be done through the blend of traditional marketing in the traditional media to promote the brand of Cloth Monger. This include the television, print media and radio. This will be complemented by a lot of social media communication described in the digital strategy below.
Customer Relationship Management: A database will be formed to take contact details and emails of clients. This will help to provide information that will be exchanged regularly to keep clients current and updated in order to maintain their indulgence and interest in the company.
Product Development: A system of monitoring consumer demand will be put in place. This will include the gathering of sales details about what consumers want and develop products along those lines in order to improve their interest and enhance customer value.
Digital Marketing Strategy
The recommended strategy will need to be transposed to a digital marketing strategy that will reflect the overall marketing plan. In order to achieve this goal, the following pointers are necessary;
Key Performance Indicators
These are the main elements that will help to provide specific measurable standards to show if a digital marketing strategy is working out or not. This will include the following methods and processes:
User ratings to give information about the level of satisfaction for an emergent strategy to improve the service experience;
Reviews by consumers on what they thought by rating on a scale of 1 to 5 in relation to satisfaction;
Levels of followers and number of clients on the CRM system at specific times.
Market Communication Tactics
There are numerous marketing processes that are desirable and can be blended to achieve results at various points in the operation of the marketing strategy. This include:
SEO Application: This will ensure that Cloth Monger will be the first option that comes up in major searches in the states under review;
Digital Ads: These are like Google Ad Sense and other specialized and modern online marketing entities that will enable Cloth Monger to advertise its products and services;
Viral Marketing: This will revolve around the opportunity to get people to share ideas of our products to family and friends in order to get responses and increase sales;
Social Media: This is a process whereby Facebook, Twitter and others will be engineered and made useful to the company;
Facebook Ads: These are specific ads that will target people in the markets within which the products of Cloth Monger can be sold.
References
Calkins, T. (2012). Breakthrough Marketing Plans: How to Stop Wasting Time and Start Driving Growth. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Criteo. (2016, January 4). eCommerce Industry Outlook 2016. Retrieved from Criteo: http://www.criteo.com/media/3552/criteo-ecommerce-industry-outlook-2016.pdf
Lamb, C. W., Hair, J. F., & McDaniel, C. (2011). Essentials of Marketing. Mason, OH: Cengage.
Porter, M. (2012). Competitive Strategy. New York: Free Press.
