In the apparel industry, fashion is the existing type of clothing

that is preferred by a large segment of the public.

To many people, fashion is a current trend that is popular for

frivolous reasons.
To some people, fashion is a precise style of dress or behavior
that is acceptable in one year, but not in another.

To retailers, fashion is whatever is currently selling.

To sociologists, fashion represents a way of social interaction

and status seeking.
 To be successful in the fashion Style a particular
industry, designers, producers, shape or type of apparel
marketers, and retailers must item identified by the
have an understanding of basic distinct features that
fashion terms, such as style and make it unique;
design. Design a particular or
unique version of a
style because of a
specific arrangement of
the basic design
elements;
Se ction 1.1
 A retail customer may select a Garment any article of
garment based clothing, such as a dress,
suit, coat, or sweater.
on its color.

Se ction 1.1
 The three dimensions of color are:

Hue—the quality of the color

Value—the lightness or darkness of a color
Intensity—the brightness or dullness of a color

Se ction 1.1
  Line is an element of design that directs the path of
eye movement.
 Shape, or silhouette, is the overall form or outline of a
garment.
 Texture is how the surface of a material, or fabric,
feels and looks.
 Function refers to the intended use or purpose of an
object.

Se ction 1.1
 Fashion Basics

Color Line

Texture Shape

Se ction 1.1 7
 Fashion is anything that has strong appeal to a certain
group of people at a given time.

Fashion is usually determined by taste.

Taste refers to the current opinion of what is attractive

and appropriate for an individual and occasion.

Se ction 1.1
 Fashion products include:

Home
Clothing Accessories
Furnishings

Se ction 1.1
 The earliest clothing dates from about 20,000 B.C.

The earliest clothes were developed primarily for

protection from the weather and environment.

The earliest clothes were made of fur, animal skin, leaves,

and grass.

Se ction 1.2
 People have three basic clothing needs:

Physical needs: protection and safety

Psychological needs: appearance enhancement
Social needs: affiliation and standards

Se ction 1.2
 Why People Wear Clothes

Physical Needs
• protection
• safety

Psychological
Needs Social Needs
• identity • affiliation/fitting
• adornment in
• cultural • standards
identity
Se ction 1.2 12
Fashion Marketing concept – the idea that businesses
must satisfy customers’ needs and wants in order to
make a profit.
 Fashion products are presented in a way that makes
the customer want to buy merchandise
 Fashion marketers must offer the right product at the
right time and right price.
 Must develop strategies to tell selected market about
these products.
 Fashion retailing Once the clothes have been designed and
manufactured, they need to be sold. But how are clothes to get
from the manufacturer to the customer? The business of
buying clothes from manufacturers and selling them to
customers is known as retail.

 Fashion marketing is the process of managing the flow of

fashion merchandise from the initial selection of designs to be
produced to the presentation of products to retail customers,
with the goal of maximizing a company’s sales and
profitability.
1. Marketing – Information Management
2. Financing
3. Product/ service management
4. Pricing
5. Promotion
6. Distribution
7. Selling
 Involves gathering and using information about
what consumers want.
 Considered critical because it determines what
product to produce and sell.

Five main elements are:

1. Input – reports, past records, or surveys
2. Storage – saving information
3. Analysis – study information gathered so a decision can be made
4. Output – reports of the analysis and conclusions
5. Decision making – the final result of the first four elements.
 Involves planning ways to cover the costs of
successfully operating a business.
 Includes factors such as, production costs of the
product, product pricing for the customer, and everyday
expenses such as rent, supplies, and payroll.
 The process of setting the value or cost at the right
level.
 The price of a fashion product is dependent on the cost
of production plus a profit/
 Customer demand can adjust the price up or down
 The price must cover all the elements of the
key marketing functions:
1. The costs of gathering information of what the customer
wants
2. The costs of financing the business
3. The costs of design, fabric, and construction to produce
the product
4. The costs of advertising and promotion
5. The costs of moving the product to the consumer
6. The costs of selling the product to the final customer
7. Some profit for all of the people involved in each of these
steps.
 Communicating with the customers about the product
to achieve the desired result – customer demand for
and purchase of the product.
 Includes advertising, personal selling, publicity, and
public relations.
 Fashion marketers can create an image of who wears
a brand of clothing through promotion.
How can marketers do this?
 Designing, producing, maintaining, improving, and/or
acquiring products or services to meet customer needs.
 Involves moving the product each step from the design
idea to the consumer.
 Number of businesses involved in the actual planning
and movement of the product
 Actual transportation of the product – by truck or by
air.
 Assists the customer in identifying and satisfying a
want or a need.
 Helps the customer understand the benefits of quality.
Target market – the specific group of people that a
business is trying to reach.
 Identified through research and by the shared
characteristics of the specific group of people.
 Market segmentation – a way of analyzing a market
by categorizing specific characteristics.

 Marketers divide the people into groups of possible

consumers based on various shared characteristics.

 Fashion marketers to concentrate on meeting the

needs of certain types of buyers rather than the needs
of all shoppers.
 Demographic
 Psychographic
 Geographic
 Behavioristic
 Demographics – statistics that describe a population in
terms of personal characteristics such as age, gender,
income, ethnic background, education, religion,
occupation, and lifestyle.
 Psychographics – studies of consumers based on social
and psychological characteristics such as attitudes,
interests, and opinions.
 Consumers’ attitudes and values are often represented
by how they choose to spend their time and money.
 Statistics about where people live
 Region of the country, size of the city or county, the
density of the population (urban, suburban, or rural),
even climate
 Location of where people live has an influence on their
buying habits.
 Behavioristics – statistics about consumers based on their
knowledge, attitudes, use, or response to a product.
- marketers look at the purchase occasion for a product,
product benefits, or usage level and commitment.

 Purchase occasion – instance when a customer might use a

product. Ex. “after-five”
 Product benefits – the benefits that consumers desire in a
fashion product or service. Ex. Stain-resistance.
 Usage level and commitment – identified by how often
they use the product and their loyalty to purchasing it.
 Fashion merchandising – the planning, buying, and
selling of fashion apparel and accessories to offer the
right merchandise blend to meet customer’s demand.
 Marketing mix – consists of our basic marketing
strategies known as the four P’s of marketing.
1. Product
2. Place
3. Price
4. Promotion
 These are the basic elements to satisfy a customers
needs and wants.
 What a company is offering for sale to customers to
satisfy their needs and wants.
 Includes goods and/or services
 Strategies that include producing, packaging, and
naming a product.
 Ex. Jeans, sweaters, jewelry, hairstyling
 The way products are distributed and their systems of
delivery
 Getting the product to consumers and the steps of
distribution
 How and where a product will be distributed
 Where the customer will purchase the item
 When the product will be distributed
 Example: ware-house, factory etc.
 The amount of money consumers will pay for a product
 Have to determine how much consumers are willing to
pay
 Depends on the price of producing the item, the
markup, and the customer demand.
 Goal: business must make a profit.
 Any form of communication that a business or
organization uses to inform, persuade, or remind people
to buy it’s product
 Inform customer about the features of the product and
persuade to make a purchase
 Example: Buying house, trading-house, trade-fair or
any other exhibitions.
1. Sales promotion – special contests, displayed
merchandise in windows, special coupons
 To increase customer traffic in a store
 Contests, displays, and coupons – do not require any direct
contact with the customer
2. Public relations – promote the image and
communications a company has with employees,
customers, and the public.
3. Publicity – usually unpaid mention of a business, its
employees, or its merchandise in the media.
4. Advertising – paid message that a business sends to the
public about the product.
5. Personal selling – requires personal communication
and contact with the customer
 Three strategies that fashion marketers use to increase
their business:
1. Increase the number of customers
2. Increase the average transaction
3. Increase the frequency of repurchase
 Market planning: The process of analyzing one or more potentially
interesting market places in order to determine how a business can
optimally compete in them. The market planning process
typically results in a marketing strategy that can be used to
enhance sales for the business producing it.
 Marketing planning :The planning process that yields decisions in
how a business unit can best compete in the markets it elects to serve.
The strategic plan is based upon the totality of the marketing process.
 A marketing plan outlines the specific actions you intend to carry out
to interest potential customers and clients in your product and/or
service and persuade them to buy the product and/or services you
offer.
 A marketing plan for a small business typically includes
Small Business Administration Description of competitors,
including the level of demand for the product or service and
the strengths and weaknesses of competitors
1. Description of the product or service, including special
features
2. Marketing budget, including the advertising and
promotional plan
3. Description of the business location, including advantages
and disadvantages for marketing
4. Pricing strategy
5. Market Segmentation
1. The Executive Summary. A high-level summary of
the marketing plan as a whole. It’s best to keep the
Executive Summary as short and sweet as possible —
just a couple of sentences to sum everything up. While
writing it, imagine that you’re going to present this
summary “elevator pitch” style. Once you’ve finished
it, read it out loud. If it takes you longer than ten
seconds to read it all, it probably needs to be simplified
even further.
2. The Challenge. This section should contain a brief
description of the product(s) and/or product line(s) that
your company offers. With each description, include
goals that you want to set for each product and product
line (sales figures, strategic and company-wide goals,
etc.). Keep the number and complexity of your goals at
a maximum of three per product/product line, and
remember that they need to be concise, measurable, and
moderately easy to achieve.
3. Situation Analysis. This section contains a snapshot
of your company, your customer base, and your market
at large. It should be divided into six subsections:
a) Company Analysis:
◦ Long and Short-Term Company-wide goals.
◦ The focus of your company (should fall directly in line with
your mission and vision statements).
◦ Analysis of the culture of your company.
◦ Strengths of your company.
◦ Weaknesses of your company.
◦ Your company’s estimated market share.
b) Customer Analysis:
Estimate size of your customer base (i.e. how many people could
potentially purchase any of your products. “Anyone” is not an
answer).
Key Demographics of your customer base (age, social class, gender).
Value drivers (what about your products and/or services provides
true value to your customer base?).
c) Competitor Analysis:
Market Position (are your competitors fully invested in the market,
or do they only play in specific segments? Are they big or small?).
Strengths.
Weaknesses.
Market shares.
d) Collaborators: – People and companies that are key to
continuing what you do.
 Subsidiaries, joint ventures, distributors, suppliers, etc.

e) Climate: — “PEST” Analysis.

 Political and legal environment (are there any specific
regulations or laws governing your products?).
 Economic environment.
 Social and cultural environment.
 Technological environment (are cutting-edge techs integral
to your products? are there any projected updates?).
f) SWOT Analysis:
 Your company’s internal strengths (what does your unique
structure and/or unique employee team help you be the best
at?).
 Your company’s internal weaknesses (in what areas do your
unique structure and/or unique employee team hold you
back?).
 External opportunities for your company (what’s out there
that you could easily take advantage of for your
betterment?).
 External threats to your company (what’s out there that can
potentially destroy your business if you’re not careful?).
4. Market Segmentation: Each market has its own different
segments. Understanding the relevant segments for your
product(s) in your market is important, for they allow you
to adjust your “marketing mix” (the “Four P’s” discussed
earlier) to better adapt to the different needs of each
segment.
 Segments should be measurable, accessible, different from
other segments in response to a marketing mix, durable (not
constantly changing), substantially large enough to produce
a profit, and homogeneous.
 Inside your marketing plan, listing your segments should
follow a clear and predictable form, like the one listed
below:
 Name of the Segment:
◦ Description.
◦ Percent of your overall sales this segment accounts for.
◦ What, exactly, this segment wants and needs.
◦ How this segment uses your product.
◦ What sort of support this segment needs.
◦ The best ways to advertise to and communicate with this
segment.
◦ The price sensitivity of this segment (are they largely price
elastic or price inelastic?).
◦ Repeat this until you feel that you have identified all of your
major segments.
5. Alternative Marketing Strategies: Write down details about
any alternatives that you and your team considered before
arriving at your current strategy. These may include
eliminating a particular product or line, changing the price
point of a product or line, etc.

6. Selected Marketing Strategy: Explain the strategy that you

and your team have developed and agreed upon. Why did you
choose this strategy? Why do you feel that it’s the best
possible strategy for the near future? Once that’s on paper, put
your “Four P’s” down for each product. Each product should
have its own “Four P’s” – you can follow the format below:
Product
◦ Branding/Brand Name.
◦ Intended quality of the product (is it a $1 plastic toy fire truck, or
a $30 metal one with real flashing lights and a siren?).
◦ Scope of the product line.
◦ Warranty.
◦ Packaging.

 Price
◦ List price.
◦ Discounts.
◦ Bundling.
◦ Payment terms.
◦ Leasing options (if applicable).
 Place (Distribution)
◦ Distribution channels (do you sell this product yourself, ship it to retailers or
warehouses, etc).
◦ Channel Motivations (what sort of margins should your distributors expect, if
applicable?).
◦ Criteria for evaluating your distributors.
◦ Locations.
◦ Logistics and Supply Chain.

 Promotion
◦ Advertising (what types? how much of each type? what type of advertising
channels — TV, print, internet, etc. – do you plan to use?).
◦ Public Relations.
◦ Promotional programs.
◦ Budget, including your break-even point.
◦ Projected results of this promotional program (impact to customer loyalty, new
customer acquisition, etc.).
7. Short and Long-Term Projections. This section
should include forecasts of revenues and expenses,
your break-even analysis, and any changes or
adjustments that you predict you’ll need to make in the
future.
8. The Conclusion
This is an expanded version of your Executive
Summary. You should include all specific numbers
(projected costs, revenues, profits, etc.).

The end