Vintage Clothing Store
Introduction
The project provides for opening vintage clothing and accessories store in Evansville, Indiana. Evansville represents an important commercial and cultural hub in the Illinois-Kentucky-Indiana three-state-area. The population of the Evansville metropolitan area exceeds 250 thousand people.
Business environment
The management shall not feel concerned about the regulatory forces. There are currently no political or legal issues, preventing one from prompt registration of the business, namely starting up a vintage clothing store.
At the same time, it is important for business owners to check the available options for business forms to avoid paying extra taxes. It is also essential to ensure compliance with sanitary regulations, when choosing the premise, where a shop is to be located. Furthermore, the management of the company shall be aware about import regulations and related customs duties, when importing items from other countries (especially, in case there is no functioning free trade area between the country of export and the U.S.)
Competitive forces
There are only two popular vintage clothing stores in Evansville, namely Capricorn Vintage Clothing and Stef L’amour. Both stores offer only vintage clothes at prices, typically not exceeding $100. The items, offered by the stores are not exclusive. Capricorn Vintage and Stef L’amour tend not to offer vintage accessories, along with dresses. Furthermore, both stores lack proper representation on the Internet, lacking their own websites (Capricorn Vintage). Despite the fact that both of them run Facebook pages, that is evidently not enough for capturing attention of prospective buyers. While affordability of items is the major strength of competitors, the lack of luxury products, inadequate representation on the web and unavailability of accessorizes represent their shared weaknesses.
Economic forces
According to the 2015 estimation, the economic state of Evansville has reached the economic level it had prior to the 2007 economic recession (Khayum 1). It is expected that growth and employment rates will increase in Evansville in 2016 (Khayum 1). Thus, the purchasing capacity of buyers will also increase, stimulating their interest to buying new items, such as clothes and accessories.
Technological forces
As the functioning of the vintage store is not directly concerned with the use of new technologies, its functioning is only influenced by general developments in technological field. According to the recent research by PwC, online shopping is highly popular in the USA. The figures are as follows. While 72 percent of the population shop online at least once a month, 22 percent tend to conduct research on brands on the Internet and social media. Furthermore 58 percent of population like to get offers via mobile phones, and 28 percent do not oppose using digital currency (PwC 1). Therefore, the newly created company needs to secure the possibility of buying its products via the Internet (creating a functional and attractive e-store) and actively use social networks to build up customer relations.
In this regard, it is also important to be aware about the phenomenon of social shopping, supported via newest Internet-technologies and social networks. Social shopping can be defined as an e-commerce method, whereby a buyer’s friends started to get involved into the shopping experience (the E-tailing Group 3-4). In other words, social shopping tends to copy social contacts that arise in offline stores with the help of technologies. Most commonly used social shopping technologies include group shopping websites, such as Groupon and LivingSocial; social shopping markets, where transactions can be made (e.g, Etsy, Shopcade, Savelgo), as well as recommendation engines. Retailers can get use from social shopping website not only through promoting the sales of their products, but getting information about customer preferences.
Thus, the new retail store needs to make best use of traditional e-store technologies, social media and social shopping websites.
Social forces
Modern women tend to dedicate significant attention to the way they look, and often view shopping not only as a means of buying essentials, but a relaxation and entertainment. This trend if highly positive for the business, because it makes the success of a business directly dependent on the quality of buying experience consumers are getting in-store and online marketing. Secondly, the fact that modern men also tend to pay more attention to their outlook than before is also highly positive for the store. Moreover, while there is a lot of chain stores in each outlet in Evansville, customers may choose vintage clothing to differentiate from the others, who buy clothes in outlets.
Target market
Demographics
The target market can be defined as follows. Its crucial part is comprised of middle-income women, aged from 25 to 70, who wish to look elegant and differently from those, buying clothes in chain stores. Secondly, the middle-income men, aged from 30 to 70 are also targeted. Finally, the new shop can also target middle-income young adults, aged from 16 to 25 with special offers for festivities and parties. In exceptional cases, when luxury items get imported by the management of the shop, it becomes possible to target high-income customers.
Geographical characteristics
In most general terms, the business can be addressed as a local one. However, as it is planned to use e-store and social shopping technologies, the business can also become both regional and U.S-wide. The orders can be shipped to any location within the three-state-area or other states of the U.S.
Psychographics
As it was mentioned above, the customers, choosing to buy clothes from a vintage store most probably seek to differentiate from the others by unusual clothing. The root, underlying such behavior, is likely to deal with the fact that the shop’s customers feel themselves unique and would like to underline this. This statement is especially true for young adults, who may wish to buy vintage clothes in order to go to thematic parties or school/college balls. Furthermore, the customers of a vintage clothing shop are likely to be interested in history and fashion. Customers’ purchasing decision will be influenced by the quality of items, their affordability and choice. In this regard, choice of clothing and passing accessories is a key factor to determine buyers’ decisions.
Benefits sought and usage rate
The customers are expected to spend 10-15 percent of their income on clothing. Buyers tend to view visiting offline retail stores as a type of relaxation and entertainment. Buyers, who do not work full-time (e.g, college students, senior citizens) are likely to go shopping on weekdays. On the contrary, the customers, working full-time, go shopping at the weekend. This group of customers is especially inclined to considering shopping as a type of relaxation and entertainment. Therefore, it is of significant importance for the retail store to secure that the buyers enjoy the experience of visiting the retail store as a whole.
Works cited
Capricorn Vintage. Curated vintage finds. Etsy, 2016. Web. 12 February 2016
Khayum, M. Evansville Forecast 2015. Indiana Business Review, 2015. Web. 12 February 2016
The E-tailing Group. The 2011 Social Shopping Study. PowerReviews, 2012. Web. 12 February 2016
PricewaterhouseCoopers. Global shoppers at a glance. PwC, 2015. Web. 12 February 2016
