Westminster Business School Of Management And Marketing Case Study

Westminster Business School Of Management And Marketing

Introduction: Westminster Business School Of Management And Marketing

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Retail marketing generally refers to how marketers foster their physical stores' goods and services. retail marketing needs to create a strong connection with its targeted audience online or offline through its pricing and packing tactic. Zara is the most popular international fashion brand (Liu, et.al 2019). It is related to Inditex, which is one of the biggest distribution groups. another brand is Louis Vuitton; it Is also one of the famous fashion company. It offers its items through Standalone boutiques and the company's headquarters is located in Paris, France. The main purpose of this report is to compare and contrast both the companies' value proposition and their targeted customers.

Zara and Louis use some marketing tactics to attract the audience and describe their value plan (Zara, 2023). This report also explains what type of products sell by both firms, in which it explains what product mix the firms use, how they manage their brands' image and uniqueness, and how they design their websites, Zara and Louis also use the SOR model for their websites. both firms also focus on their customer service approach to improve shoppers' experience such as collaborating on different social media sites to promote their brands and provide training to their marketers. Both companies have their unique brand logo through which customers can identify their products (Louis Vuitton, 2023).

The value proposition of Zara and Louis Vuitton and their target audience

The value proposition of Zara –

The company creates a Time-critical value plan -

Zara is an international fashion brand whose achievement stems from its capability to decrease prime times and respond to trends instantly. The company disrupted the fashion world by reducing the time to market to lower than three weeks from encouragement to retail (Zhu, 2019). Zara launched a new collection of reasonable fast fashion. with this model, the firm becomes long-lasting in the highly competitive fashion world: as of 2018, The brand was coming online platform in 96 nations, handling 2,238 offline stores and 18.9 billion pounds’ yearly revenue. 

Zara's value proposition concentrates on changing fast-moving fashion trends. its movement formation permits it to identify new fashion trends and offer new products in a minimum of three weeks. but the company delivers only limited products in each style to stores, so its inventory is always limited. this encourages continuously changing collections and customers are excited to purchase them when they see them because the products won’t be available for long.

The company holds a new cost structure – Zara pays higher labor costs for flexibility, whole control and the needed speed in its production and design procedures. The company also invests 85% of its factory size for the higher season and 50% of clothes are prepared and manufactured in the mid-season. Firm trained its employees based on customers’ choices and preferences and actual-time sales information to designers through efficient interaction systems (Wirtz, 2021). Zara has a limited collection of items in every style that are restocked and relayed on demand. that's why it rarely discounts clothes.

The target audience of Zara –

company's target audience involves male and female, the main customer of this brand is young adults in the age group of 18 to 40. Zara's segmentation tactic is highly concentrated on Millennials and Gen Z because this generation is more fashion-conscious and tech-savvy. it can be better understood by this age distribution graph that is given below:

Zara's most targeted customers are more young women than males, in the UK company has over 4 million women customers, in contrast to the male who is only 2.3 million (Duoyan, 2021).

Figure 1: Zara's Demographic Segmentation

The value proposition of Louis Vuitton –

It is a French fashion company of expensive and luxury products which is established in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. this brand also known by its initials LV, it is one of the most popular brand in the world. Company has a huge variety of goods in which the label's monogram shows on most of its items from extravagance costumes and leather products to shoes, dresses, watches, and other accessories, etc. Company does not perform marketing activity but just prepares goods that are incomparable in its design and expertise; Louis's bags are handmade and with extreme care (Larchenko, 2020). Firm’s products are available at both the platform online and physical stores.

The value proposition of Louis Vuitton is the higher level of expertise or craftsmanship that is placed into creating products, and the higher quality of materials used in the manufacturing process. The value plan of the items to the customer is specifically robustness, beauty, and standards. Company is highly focused on its customers. The firm offers all possible services to its customers. the customer service they provide to customers supported them in holding their consumers giving uniqueness and wide-ranging loyalty programs. The company offers lifetime free maintenance to its consumers and an opportunity to be a part of an elite club. The company also modifies the items according to its customers’ choices.

The target audience of Louis Vuitton's –

Louis Vuitton's target customers are high-class people; it focuses on individuals who have large income sources and can afford to buy luxury items. The company includes both males and females in the age range of 22 to 65 years (Nuseir and Madanat, 2015). The firm generally sells its items on high-end department stores, standalone boutiques and online websites. Louis Vuitton applied a value-based pricing strategy for its goods (Louis Vuitton, 2023). As a company pays more attention to the material's quality, shape, and production process so it charges a higher amount for its products. In 2020, Louis Vuitton's total revenue is 14 billion pounds and after that, the revenue is constantly increasing every year, company has a timeless yet modern, brand logo.

Zara and Louis Vuitton’s marketing tactics to attract customers and communicate their value proposition

Zara’s marketing tactic is prepared on the promise of prompt fashion; it gives customers any style that they want faster than its rivals and still at a reasonable price. The company manufactures over three times the number of items every year than its competitors, however in little amount. The company communicates its value proposition through storytelling; it is creating a story around its brand's products and promotes it on the company's official website. For example, in 2015, Zara created a pink scarf story in which a woman came into Zara's store in Tokyo and purchase a pink scarf. After watching this story females worldwide asked for pink scarves. and at that time this story was a hot trend. After seven days into this story, half of million pink scarves were sold from Zara's stores.

Louis Vuitton used a marketing tactic for its items with the help of social media influencers and celebrity endorsements. the company collaborates with celebrities and influencers and they create content around the products and show that they also use brand products which attract customers, especially women (Shah, et.al 2020). This social media influencer and actors and actresses are involved in high-profile campaigns of Louis Vuitton's. the firm has also been highly engaged in sponsoring big sporting programs such as motorsport and through these events, the company can make a direct connection with the target customers.

The assortment of product Zara and Louis Vuitton sell

Zara does all the production in its factories rather than outsourcing. This assures that it has whole control over the quality of its products, and it also decrease the time on the entire manufacturing process. Zara’s clothing quality is the higher quality based it is never compromised with its products quality that’s why Zara’s are luxurious (Zara, 2023). The company uses premium pricing method, so the price of products is higher than ordinary products. The firm has 2,242 outlets worldwide and it has also actively operated online platforms of selling such as e-commerce websites aside from its official website. the company promote its clothing or new event through posting Facebook status. Zara has fast-moving fashion, rapid and more easy production etc.

Louis Vuitton’s product mix is based on price, product, place and promotion, it is a premium brand that offers best quality products. it produces 100% pure leather items and pay focus to its products design. The firm offers handmade and artistic bags, sunglasses and other accessories etc (Louis Vuitton, 2023). Louis Vuitton applied a value based pricing method on its business, which means company provides higher quality products and customer need to pay high amount on these products. Basically the main customers of this brand are elite club people who have large sources of income. Louis Vuitton sell its products on its own stores, company’s offering channels is limited. The firm promote its products through social media influencers and popular personalities such as Jennifer Lopez etc.

Zara and Louis Vuitton's approach to improving customer service

Zara's approach to customer service is nearly connected to its value plan, which is to give instant, fashionable and reasonable costumes to customers (Biscaia, et.al 2017). The tactics outlined above, such as bespoke service, useful purchasing, fast shipping, modern technology, customer reviews and physical store experiences, all contribute to the company's value proposition by offering customers a continuous, joy-full and effective shopping experience. Zara's method of customer service is nearly connected to its value plan, as the firm concentrates on improving the shopper's experiences through its tactics that support its objectives of offering instant, fashionable and reasonable clothing to customers. Zara is using the SERVQUAL Model in its business for subjective analysis. Company's satisfactory survey based on the distribution and transactions among supplier or purchaser, Zara's noticeable quality is measured through original and environmental factor.

Louis Vuitton's method to customer service is largely attached to its value plan, which is to give luxury items and experiences to its audiences. The tactics outlined above, such as modified services, focus on detail, after-sales support, highly offline store experiences, modernization, and customization, all contribute company's value proposition by giving customers a greater shopping experience. Louis Vuitton's method of customer service is largely connected to its value plan, as the firm’s focus on improving the shopper’s experience through its tactics which helps its goals of offering luxury and expensive items and experiences to its customers.

Zara and Louis Vuitton’s websites and store designing

Zara and Louis Vuitton use the SOR Model in their business to design their websites and offline stores. SOR Model helps in assessing the connection between Zara and its customer's positive emotional feedback and responses. Company's storefront is built with glass fronts, especially in new stores (Haming, et.al 2019). Zara's flooring is made with white and light cream ceramics, and it used a mixture of ambient and track lighting. On the website, the navigation bar is correctly categorized, so when customers click on that subcategories show right away and also give unique viewing options, etc.

Louis Vuitton has changed its stores worldwide for the launch of a new collection which is known as an anticipated capsule with Japanese modern artist Yayoi Kusama. With this collaboration, the company has redesigned its stores with Kusuma’s signature polka-dots across the world. Stores windows are painted with life-like animatronics of Kusuma painting etc. Louis Vuitton's website was created with a homepage that shows the images of the brand's products also offers a main navigation bar that provides different categories of information and description and the company's collection page shows the latest collection of the brand.

So, one of the main differences between Zara and Louis Vuitton is that Zara never promotes its brand while Louis Vuitton promotes its products through social media influencers and celebrities on different social media sites. Zara has a limited collection on another hand Louis Vuitton has a wide range of variety in products such as watches, sunglass, accessories, etc (De Veirman, et.al 2019). Zara communicates its value proposition through storytelling to its customers, while, Louis Vuitton collaborated with different sports campaigns and directly linked with its customers.

Conclusion

It is concluded that retail marketing includes all the methods that companies acquire in relation with customers and attract those customers to purchase their goods and services. It is shown in the above that the main target audience of Zara and Louis Vuitton's is elite people. This report explains the value propositions of Zara and Louis Vuitton, in which Zara is using time-critical value plan. it is also seen that both the companies using different strategies to retain the customers through describing their value plan. Zara and Louis Vuitton applying unique approaches in their business to enhance customer service. It is also describe that Zara is using SERVQUAL Model in its subjective analysis. Both the brands using SOR model for their website designing. It is seen that both the brands only focusing on elite class people, so it is suggested that they should also focuses on the middle class people so it can benefited for both Zara and Louis Vuitton.

References

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