Retail Marketing Principle

The retail sector is a flourishing business environment that will always provide an income for staff and outgoings through sales. One of the most financial prosperous industries in the retail sector is the fashion industry with people all over the world needing clothes as a basic need.

The fashion industry is a highly competitive industry with thousands of businesses competing worldwide to gain market share and get the illustrious title of market leader. Within the UK, the fashion industry in retail terms is valued at £1.6bn (NESTA, 2009) and in 2007 the DMCS estimated that the UK designer fashion industry employed 130,700 in 2,800 businesses. This shows the vastness of the industry and the market it attracts.

The fashion industry is highly chaotic with many factors such as companies using overseas sourcing to take advantage of cheaper labour costs. "Fast fashion has the objective of getting clothing into store within the shortest time possible" (Bruce & Daly, 2006). The success of fast fashion is determined by the speed by which the decisions are made and innovation is then launched in the store. Fashion consumers expect and thrive on constant change which is why new products have to be available frequently (Bruce & Daly, 2006). It is has been proved that not all retailers who choose not to follow a fast fashion strategy are unsuccessful (Hayes & Jones, 2006) as it is argued that fast fashion accounts for 12% of the clothing market (Barnes & Lea-Greenwood, 2006). Non fast fashion retailers such as Next have the highest turnover of all clothing retailers in the UK (FAME, 2005), yet don't succumb to the pressures of fast lead-times.

Next sees themselves as producing "exciting, beautifully designed, excellent quality clothing and home ware; presented in collections that reflect the aspirations and means of our customers" (Next, 2010). Next has always marketing their clothing in dissimilar to others with the company not having television adverts for 12 years prior to 2007, but then releasing one to bring the ‘magic back' (Preston, 2007).

The way a company aims to get a product from the business to the consumer and eventually persuading them to purchase it revolves around the 7p's of marketing, as shown in diagram 1. The extended marketing mix (7p's) highlights both the physical aspects of what the product and how it is portrayed and the service elements received after the purchase.