Sustainability of H&M in Competitive Apparel Market
Managing Customers and Markets
Topic:
Sustainability of H&M in Competitive Apparel Market
Name:
**
Summary:
With an ever-increasing numbers of competitors gaining traction globally and more big retailers stepping into the low-cost fast-fashion industry, H&M has encountered difficulties in prolonging its competitiveness to retain consumers and surviving in the keen global apparel market. However, H&M has set its insight in finding new ways to maintain industry leadership and ranked 23 in the Best Global Brands 2012 while its main competitor Zara only at 37. This paper will examine the strong positioning of H&M by using 3Cs (Company, Consumer and Competition) and STP (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning) analysis. Moreover, the study will also demonstrate how unique marketing strategies (4Ps) help H&M to gain profitable market share and build brand loyalty.
Background
Apparel retail industry has intense competition in the global market.
H&M (originally known as Hennes & Mauritz) with the business concept of “Giving the customer unbeatable value by offering fashion and quality at the best price” is a fashionable clothing company established in Sweden in 1947. H&M is successful because of its fast response to the fast-fashion market by offering wide range of high quality apparels of the best designs under the name of an inexpensive clothing label through extensive retail channels. H&M, ranked 23 in the Best Global Brands 2012 (Interbrand, 2012), is the second largest apparel retailer in the world, just behind Inditex Group which owns one of the successful brands Zara. H&M is also able to meet the rapidly changing demand prevalent in fashion retailing by designing the most fashionable products to meet consumers’ needs.
Management Problems
H&M, which is positioned as lower end with high quality, finds itself in threatening position with the emergence of aggressive new competitors such as Uniqlo and Forever 21 at the lower
Topic:
Sustainability of H&M in Competitive Apparel Market
Name:
**
Summary:
With an ever-increasing numbers of competitors gaining traction globally and more big retailers stepping into the low-cost fast-fashion industry, H&M has encountered difficulties in prolonging its competitiveness to retain consumers and surviving in the keen global apparel market. However, H&M has set its insight in finding new ways to maintain industry leadership and ranked 23 in the Best Global Brands 2012 while its main competitor Zara only at 37. This paper will examine the strong positioning of H&M by using 3Cs (Company, Consumer and Competition) and STP (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning) analysis. Moreover, the study will also demonstrate how unique marketing strategies (4Ps) help H&M to gain profitable market share and build brand loyalty.
Background
Apparel retail industry has intense competition in the global market.
H&M (originally known as Hennes & Mauritz) with the business concept of “Giving the customer unbeatable value by offering fashion and quality at the best price” is a fashionable clothing company established in Sweden in 1947. H&M is successful because of its fast response to the fast-fashion market by offering wide range of high quality apparels of the best designs under the name of an inexpensive clothing label through extensive retail channels. H&M, ranked 23 in the Best Global Brands 2012 (Interbrand, 2012), is the second largest apparel retailer in the world, just behind Inditex Group which owns one of the successful brands Zara. H&M is also able to meet the rapidly changing demand prevalent in fashion retailing by designing the most fashionable products to meet consumers’ needs.
Management Problems
H&M, which is positioned as lower end with high quality, finds itself in threatening position with the emergence of aggressive new competitors such as Uniqlo and Forever 21 at the lower
References: Gap (2013), Retrieved from http://www.gapinc.com/content/gapinc/html/aboutus/ourbrands/gap.html on 10 April 2013. H&M (2013), Retrieved from http://www.hm.com/hk/ on 21 April 2013. Inditex (2013), Retrieved from http://inditex.com/en/who_we_are/our_group on 25 April 2013. Interbrand (2012), “Best Global Brand”, Retrieved from http://rankingthebrands.com/The-Brand-Rankings.aspx?rankingID=37&year=523 on 20th April 2013. J. Paul et al (1999), Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategy, McGraw-Hill. Kotler et al (2012), Marketing Management: An Asian Perspective (6th ed.), Pearson Skema Research Center (2012), “Competition”, Retrieved from http://fastfashiontrend.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/competition/ on 10 April 2013. The Economists (2010), “Uniquely positioned”, Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/16436304 on 10 April 2013. The Wall Street Journal (2013), “H&M struggles to compete in high-street fashion”, Europe Business News, March 15 2013, Retrieved from http://www.nasdaq.com/article/hm-begins-to-struggle-to-compete-in-high-street-fashion-20130315-00141 on 15 April 2013. Uniqlo (2013), Retrieved from http://www.uniqlo.com/us/ on 25 April 2013.