Fashion industry evidences constant change in the trend, which makes it necessary for the organisations to constantly introduce innovative designs in market for holding competitive advantage. However, the innovative product development incorporates a number of verification stages, which ensures the product sales and profit in the particular target market. This can incorporate trend or directional trend analysis, style and colour trend, market research, range building, pricing strategy, sourcing, costing, negotiation, product specification, fittings, testing and critical path. Following this steps help in validating the effectiveness of the product. This portfolio aims to identify the validity of denim jeans in the target market of UK.
Directional shopping analysis is the step incorporated by the fashion industry to identify the current dominating trend in the market. A company in this particular stage of product development employs its effort in studying the market trend (Choi et al 2013).This helps in directing the focus of the fashion product manufacturers towards the upcoming trends in the market.
Collecting information is however a complicated process, where identifying the trend directly from the target customers has limited options. This identifies the need information collection from the retail stores for formulating idea on the popular styling, price, fit and quality of the materials used by the mass target population. This specific criterion is fulfilled by visiting the local stores, whereas, introduction of new trend in the market requires the designers to visit the major fashion cities.
Samuel Trotman, senior editor of WGSN is a denim specialist. WGSN is fashion consultant agency that employs its resources for identifying the market trend in different parts of the world (wgsn.com 2018). The report submitted by Trotman reveals that denim is considered as all seasonal jeans availed by the mass in UK and the population around the world. The out-there jeans, super-dramatic flares, pearls embellishments and ruffle-trim cropped jeans (Store.mintel.com 2018), will accompany the present trend of skinny jeans and straight legs. In the meantime, the denim jacket is likely to be back to have its impact in the market.
Men’s denim on the in the other hand for the upcoming year is likely to undergo limited modification. The popular upcoming denim trends that are likely to dominate the market are, unwashed, cropped, skinny, slim fit, embellished and ripped. Moreover, classic 80s style is likely to revisit the market in 2018 (wgsn.com 2018). These trends are likely to dominate the market for the upcoming year.
The product proposed to be developed in the process is the denim jeans that have lasted in the market for comparatively longer period. This is due to the comfortable use and easy to maintain nature of the product. Moreover, in the meantime, this particular product is useable in all season and the demand remains constant around the year. However, the product has significantly evolved in the chronological frame and it is not the same as it was in its early stages of development. The above directional shopping analysis provided detailed insight about the current trend of denim jeans in the UK market for both the male and female perspective.
Depending on the above directional shopping analysis, the style selected for processing can be the ripped denim jeans that are getting attention in the recent years. The trend became popular among the youth of UK as well as in the international market. However, the intensity of ripping will be reduced and controlled for bringing variation when compared to the products delivered by the competitors. This is to allow the customers using the product in multiple occasions and various types of appointments. This will provide a versatile usability to the product. Additionally the product will follow the criterion of skinny jeans for bringing modernity in the ripped category.
Colour of the product is another important concern in the fashion garments industry. The colour that is believed to have greater attraction in the target market is the traditional blue denim. Moreover, different shades of denim blue for this product will gain greater attraction among the wide target customers.
Selecting this style will help addressing both the UK customer base along with the international fashion cities namely Melbourne, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vancouver, Berlin and many more. These cities are considered as the promoter of fashion around the world.
Marketing research in the product development refers to the market study conducted before sending the product for production. This step is undertaken for identifying the potential buyers in the target market and the demand of the product. This helps the company in determining the amount the company needs to produce for the target market.
Segmentation helps in identifying the niche with specific needs of the product being delivered. The focused market can be segmented basing on a number of variables, where the necessary segmentation for the garment products will be demographic, geographic and psychographic (Hollensen 2015).
Demographic – Demographic segmentation can further be divided into age, sex, economic status and many others. The skinny fit ripped jeans that is being offered is likely to attract the young generation of the focused group. The age group that can be the potential buyers is hence marked between the teenagers to 40 years. Men and women both can be the potential buyers of the product as the trend of jeans is adopted by both. Moreover, the data acquired from the directional shopping analysis reflects the existing demand for ripped jeans or slim fit denim jeans trend. Economic condition of the population reflects a per capita income of $41602.98 USD in United Kingdom that reflects the capability of the population for purchasing high-end products (Tradingeconomics.com 2018). A stable GDP of $2.86 trillioon USD as on 2016 reflects high purchasing power of the population (Ons.gov.uk 2018). Hence, the product planned for production is likely to enjoy suitable condition in the market.
Geographic – Both the residents of rural and urban sector prefer the denim jeans. Moreover, the sovereign state is well connected with various mode of transportation that will be in favour of to the product for distribution.
Psychographic – the directional study of the product reflects the psychographic preference of the population and attraction towards the denim jeans.
The possible target market for the product can be the urban sector due to the high quality selected for the product that will likely to increase the price of the product. The target age group for the product can be targeted between 18-35 years, which also represents the larger section of the population (Gbadamosi 2013). Moreover, the due to the high production cost, the economically stable middle and upper income group can be targeted.
The product will be positioned as the luxurious high priced product in the market, which will be made available for the middle and upper economic group of the urban sector in the target population (Diamantopoulos et al 2014). Moreover, the product will be made available in the in both the e-commerce retails stores and luxury brand stores for holding the brand value of the product. The product will also be sold through the company’s website.
|
Retailer |
Style Description |
Image |
Size/Fit |
Options? Colourways |
Composition |
Country of Origin |
Retail Price (RRP) |
Promotion |
|
Bethals |
Skinny Fit |
26/28 – 36/34 |
Black, Rinsed Indigo |
Denim jeans |
England |
£75.00 |
Social media, social networking, online, pay-per-click, email, third-party,sms etc. (bethnals.com 2018) |
|
|
Mih Jeans |
Flare |
24-32 |
Black, Dark, Grey, Mid, Light and White (mih-jeans.com. 2018) |
Denim Jeans |
Britain |
£235.00 |
Social Networking, email, online, third party andWebpage. |
|
|
Hiut Denim |
Slim fit tapered |
28 – 38 |
Black and Indigo (Hiutdenim.co.uk. 2018) |
Denim Jeans |
Britain |
£150.00 |
Social Networking, email, online, third party and Webpage. |
|
|
Marques’Almeida |
Flare |
28 – 36 |
Steel |
Denim |
Britain |
£525.00 |
Social Networking, Webpage, online, third-party, email (marquesalmeida.com. 2018) |
The pricing architecture, which is followed by the given company, seems to address to the needs of the different segments. The four kinds of retailers, which have been given, are as follows:
The price architecture has been given below:
Figure 1: The Price Architecture
The price architecture tends to describe the build up architecture of the given denim product. As it aims to target the upper segment of the market, the price has been priced extremely high (Varley 2014).
Through the given architecture of price, the product can be assumed high quality among its target market.
The pricing architecture reflects high production and processing cost that makes it necessary for selecting price-skimming strategy. The manufacturers to generate maximum revenue in the initial stage of product lifecycle use Price skimming. The strategy initially uses maximum price for the products higher compared to the competitors in the market for positioning themselves as high quality product along with the primary objective mentioned. This will be used in case for the denim product and will be priced higher than its competitor in the market for drawing maximum profit in its initial stage. This also helps in positioning the product as high quality among the customers. The product can later move on to premium pricing for holding the value of perceived.
Sourcing – The manufacturing of the product will be outsourced for attaining cost leadership that will potentially increase the profit margin. Outsourcing of the product will considerably reduce the production cost of the company, as the responsibility of manufacturing will be handed over to the third party manufacturer. Hence, the cost likely to incur from managing production and manufacturing the product will considerably reduce (Gobble 2013). The third party manufacturing companies situated in the developing countries are the best place for outsourcing the production due to the low labour cost. This is considered as the primary benefit for the manufacturing companies as it significantly reduces the production cost (Kim 2013). The possible countries for outsourcing in garment industry can be Pakistan, India, China and Bangladesh. However, due to the recent development in labour costing in China and India limits the possibilities for outsourcing in the particulars. In this stance, the outsourcing country selected will be Bangladesh as the labour cost is significantly low compared to the other countries. The quality and other credentials of the product in this case will be communicated to the manufacturer for receiving the desired product.
Costing – Costing of a product refers to the cost that is incurred in a given product. The costing of a product needs to take into consideration all kinds of expenses incurred in the manufacture of the give product (Luna-Reyes et al. 2014). The costing of the denim has been done below:
A 20% VAT has been considered as per the rules in UK.
The main aim of the given section is to calculate the margin percentage on the given products.
With VAT the Margin= (SP- VAT) minus the cost price x 100
Selling price
Finding the cost price of the given jeans proposed:
|
Cost Price of the Jeans: The cost price of the jeans will be total of all the costs incurred on the product. The various costs, which will be incurred on the product, are the packaging costs, Transportation costs, Outsourcing Costs, labeling costs Labor Cost and the Material Cost (Armstrong et al. 2015).
Hence, by totaling the costs the total cost price of the jeans per meter is coming up to: 252£.
The selling price, which the company aims to sell the product at a higher cost than its competitors the selling price, is 530£.
If the company keeps the given selling price:
=£530 * 0.8 to remove the VAT- £252/ £530)* 100
= £424-£252/£530
=172/530
=32.45%
Hence, the margin in the given cost and the chosen selling price can be taken to be 32.45%
It can be stated that it is extremely essential for any organization to choose the correct pricing strategy so that it does not miss any opportunity to increase the profit. The next section describes the negotiation technique (Wang, Wang and Wang 2013).
Negotiation – Negotiation can be described as the extent to which the profit of the given product can be increased. It is often described as the communication and the extent to which the given parties place certain demands and compromises. Negotiation in this process can also be described as the price, which can be deducted from the selling price or the discount, which can be given in order to attract the customer to buy the product (Hollensen 2015). This is one of the most popular strategies, which is often followed by the companies to attract a larger crowd. They tend to price their product at a higher rate and then give a nominal discount of 10% or 20% in order to attract the given set of segmented customers.
The company aims to give a discount of 5% on the listed price to attract a larger market.
Product Specification
The material that will be used in the product is denim. It is a strong or well made cotton wrap-faced textile. Weft generally passes under two threads (Jalil et al 2013). However, material for this particular product will pass under three threads for increasing the durability of the product while keeping the lightweight comfort of the product.
This particular product falls under the washed denim due to the washing process the product will undergo after dying. The dying process will be carried out using the indigofera tinctoria for proposing greater value to the customers for carrying out the authentic environmental friendly procedure of dying denim jeans (Khalil 2015). However, this will significantly increase the costing of the product. This as well will provide greater quality to the product. Moreover, colour of the product gets darker depending on the repetition of the dying process. Additionally, the rope dying process will be considered for this product for eliminating the shading across the fabric width.
The ripping will be kept under control for providing a decent look of the garments, which will enable the user to use the product in multiple occasions (Jalil et al 2013). Hence, the intensity of the rippling in for this product will be low.
Focus has to be given on the primary target market for manufacturing the garments. The European population belonging from caucasoid race reflects greater stature and health build. This calls for the products to range between the waist sizes of 28 inch to 42 inch. Moreover, the common length will be set at 40 inch for the mentioned waist size to address the complete possibilities (Tinggaard et al 2014). However, customisation or tailoring will be made available for the customers in the retail shops for altering the products accordingly to the need of individual customers. The Selection of the mentioned fitting for the products will help addressing the European population.
Colourfastness to Washing – This involves systematic washing of the product under predetermined atmosphere for ensuring the colourfastness due to the washing.
Teas Strength – Garments under this testing process are put into the testing apparatus for determining the tear force of the product.
Abrasion Resistance –This is to identify the change in colour and appearance under extreme condition set in the laboratory.
Colour Fastness to Rubbing – This procedure put both wet and dry separately in the machine for identifying the colourfastness due to rubbing.
Dimension Stability – This is checked at the end for identifying the change in dimension of the product due to the extreme conditions it underwent (Gustafsson Lindstam and Nilsson 2012).
The excel file contains the critical path for the product development.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the selected product is aligned with the current market trend in the UK market as well as the international market. The combination of ribbed and skinny will successfully attract the customers in the target market. The material used for the product will successfully put it as high-end product in the market satisfying the need of pricing architecture chosen for it.
Reference Style
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