Marketing the Fashion Product Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Marketing the Fashion Product - Essay Example The essay "Marketing the Fashion Product" talks about the successful marketing strategy of the biggest clothes retailer in the United Kingdom Marks and Spencer (M&S). The lingerie market has grown steadily over the past decades with the United Kingdom experiencing consistent growth. M&S have grown consistently with new designs, innovative practices to record huge volume of sales in the last 5 years. â€Å"The total UK lingerie market was worth an estimated  £2.93bn in 2010, increasing by 17.8% over the 5-year review period.† M&S underwear brands consist of ‘Autograph’, ‘Per Una’ and ‘M&S Woman’ for women. For men it is ‘Autograph underwear’, ‘collezione’. Marketing has always been the nucleus of any business. There is no other alternative to reach the customers than a proper marketing plan and execution. The companies need to reach out to the customers and offer them the best services and quality at competitive prices. It is not necessary for M&S to provide cheap products as quality is the key to the underwear market segment where comfort counts. The twofold goal of marketing is to attract new customers by promising superior value and to keep and grow current customers by delivering satisfaction. The 7P marketing mix is a scientific account of the key areas of marketing which are Product, Price, place, promotion, packaging, positioning, and people. The idea of marketing mix is the same idea as mixing a cake. A baker will alter the proportions of ingredients in a cake depending on the type of cake he/she wishes to bake. The proportions in marketing mix can be altered in the same way and can differ from product to product.† (GCSE,2001) Product selling is a critical area where the customer habits and trends decide whether they want to purchase the product. Quality and innovative design are key factors where the marketers need to equip themselves with answers to critical questions as to the marketability and the acceptability of a product. Product demand and the trend of the market will decide on the sale of the product. M&S have the uniqueness in them where their innovative designers are constantly researching on the aspect of giving the customer an out of the box design. The body shape wear designed by their experts were special for the customers where they welcomed it and very soon it became the trend setter for the underwear brands. Apart from the core product selling, after sales services are also an important segment of product selling as it gives an element of trust to the company. Price is the second P of the

[Management Accounting] Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Essay

[Management Accounting] Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of activity-based costing vs volume based costing system - Essay Example The system is also accurate because it identifies products and then assigns to them direct and indirect costs. This means that ABC identifies the cost of producing various products. This then enables companies to determine the products that are highly profitable and those that produce low returns (Kaplan, & Anderson, 2005). Organizations then decide to produce the profitable products in large quantities and the less profitable ones in low or no quantities. ABC system helps managers in forecasting demand for their products and predicting sales using the company’s capacity. The capacity of an organization refers to the ability of employees and machines to produce goods of a certain quantity. Organizations compare the products that employees and machines produce in a day and those that consumers purchase on the same period. If the company sells all the products that it produces, it discovers that its demand is higher than its capacity (Drury, 2012). If consumption is less than production, companies, are able to tell that the level of demand is below its capacity. Organizations then determine the amount of output to produce using the comparisons. ABC system is vital in identifying wasteful products and ensuring resources are used productively. According to Kaplan and Anderson (2005), activity-based costing system allows managers to eliminate costs spent on non-value adding activities. This provides greater visibility into business processes and operational cost drivers. Improving information visibility also enables cost managers to deploy quality-related initiatives by identifying and eliminating poor quality activities together and their cost drivers (Gilbert, 2007). This is beneficial to the company as it increases efficiency and profitability because firms concentrate on profitable activities and products. Setting an activity-based system is costly and time-consuming. Extra costs are caused by the need to hire the services of a consultant with