Wardrobe Malfunction - Essay Example

Wardrobe Malfunction Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts (07, June, Introduction Fashion is a huge industry with millions of employees all over the world, it is simply huge business. Fashion affects people and countries in many ways, as it also reflects culture of the society. Fashion simply reflects and defines people, and is found in almost all the human activities. There are several companies and brands playing in the fashion world, which are playing with the minds of consumers through their marketing activities. They produce, innovate, create and then they use marketing to make consumers aware of their products. Fashion does not only exist in dressing, it is related to the ideas as well as the life of human beings. It is accepted by the consumers and becomes a part of their lives and life styles. The fashion industry The driving forces of competitiveness in Fashion Industry are Capital Investment and Marketing. The industry requires constant changes in the form of updating products for the customers. The main elements of the fashion industry are clothing and footwear. Fashion is not only related to clothes or accessories, it covers a vast area including automobiles, food, music, housing, beauty products, and others as well, as all these are influenced by fashion trends. The fashion industry is highly competitive and consists of several players in it. Fashion has a quite short life cycle, consisting of four different stages, which are as follows: Introduction and Adoption Growth and Increase Mass Conformity which is also known as Maturity Obsolescence and Decline The Fashion Market The fashion market consists of the following prominent characteristics: Short Life Cycles Low Predictability High Volatility High Impulse Purchasing Fashion Marketing The first stage of the fashion life cycle is mainly related to fashion marketing. As marketing helps in introducing any new product or innovated product in the market so that the consumers can get aware of it. Marketing serves as a backbone to the fashion industry as it highly depends that how the fashion is being marketed. It influences as well as controls the consumer’s perception by making the consumers aware about the benefits of the products. Technology plays an important role in creating brand awareness as well as in increasing sales. Online sale is one of the best examples of technology advantages for business. There are many mediums for marketing, and the fashion industry also uses different marketing strategies and marketing ways, in order to make people aware of fashion trends. TV commercials, newspapers, fashion magazines, internet and social networks are being used for the purpose of marketing. This means that fashion industry uses traditional communication channels as well as internet and social web for its promotion and sales. The traditional perception of purchasing a product was its need and benefit. But now consumers purchase products because it can make them feel strong, stylish, rugged, young, rich, successful, glamorous, unique, sensual, sporty, and masculine. The brands are now related to the image of the consumers and this is what the fashion world is creating the images of brands in the mind of consumers (Hasslinger, Hodzic, & Opazo, 2007). Fashion marketing consists of a wide range of business philosophies and techniques which focuses on the customer needs related to fashion and also focuses on the long term goals of any organization (Hines & Bruce, 2006). In order to achieve success in fashion marketing, the marketing industry players should be able to manage brilliantly three things: Time to React The brands and companies in the fashion industry have to work continuously to maintain their position in the industry. They should know that when they have to react to meet the customer requirements. Time to Serve In fashion industry, every company or brand is required to show continuous innovation, so as to retain consumers as well as to maintain its place in the industry. The brands should know the right time when they should serve. They should be creative as well as able of finding out what new the customers require and then serve them accordingly. They should think and work before others can. Time to Market In order to achieve sales opportunity, fashion companies should be able to market their products uniquely on time. They have to keep a track of the market, and should know that when it is the right time to market their products. For example, Leather Jackets should be marketed and promoted in winters, or right before winter, not in peak summers. Value Addition Process in Fashion Marketing The stages of the value addition process in the fashion marketing are defined below: Basic Budget The basic budget products are generally found in budget and discount stores, for the people who can’t afford expensive products or those who do not prefer getting fashionable. Such products are less costly and people can easily afford them. Basic Updated The basic products are updated for the people, so that they can find something change and good for themselves. This helps in adding value to the basic budget products. Style Wear Contemporary Classics Style wear contemporary classics are easily available in stores for the consumers. In this step, value is added to the products in the form of style, so that consumers can find such products stylish and classical. Fashion diffusion line This is the fourth stage of the process, in which fashion is diffused and products are made available in specialty stores. It is a very important stage of this process, which helps in making place in the hearts of consumers and also helps in making place in the market with unique products. Fantasy Haute Couture This is the last stage of the process of value addition in the fashion market. In this stage, a well-established brand image is formed in the minds of people. These products are made available in designer houses and boutiques. Fashion and Internet – Online Sales and Shopping These days internet is serving as a platform for marketing, it has created a completely new market for the customers as well as organizations (Yucel, Elibol & Dagdelin, 2009). Online marketing and online shopping has become very common these days, and thousands of people are involved in online shopping. By using internet, the fashion industry can target more audience, as it provides people with more reliable information as well as greater access to the information. Internet helps in two way communication, and along with creating awareness, internet also helps in getting consumers opinions and perception about certain products and fashion trends (Nguyen, 2010). Many companies and brands are taking advantage of online sales and marketing as through this they can easily increase their sales. Online sales have proven it to be highly beneficial for the industry and brands, as the rate of sales have prominently increased (Hasslinger, Hodzic & Opazo, 2007). Consumer’s Perspective towards Fashion Marketing and Online Shopping The perceptions of the consumers vary from person to person, and from country to country towards online shopping. Internet has become a mass medium for consumers who can conveniently purchase products online. There are three research perspectives to explain the consumer behavior, which includes decision making perspective, experiential perspective, and behavioral influence perspective. These three perspectives make it easy to find out the consumer’s perspective towards online shopping. Online shopping is becoming trendy these days, and here are some facts related to online shopping as reviewed by (Zhou, Dai, & Zhang, 2007). Males are more caught up in online shopping as compared to females, as females are more skeptical of online shopping and e business. Online shopping is directly related to the income, the more the income is the more people get involved in online shopping. The people from collectivistic culture are less involved in online shopping as compared to the people from individualistic culture. The convenience oriented people are more likely to be involved in online shopping. Online shopping is negatively influenced by perceived risk. Consumers will only purchase online again, if they have good experience with the previous purchase. While shopping online, consumers are found to be a bit choosy. They search for more and more information related to the product they want to purchase. The decision of consumers related to purchase of any product is influenced by several external factors including the marketing efforts of firm like product, price, distribution channel, as well as promotion. While the socio cultural environment also influences the decision making process of any consumer. The components of socio cultural environment are family, informal resources, social class, non-commercial sources and culture (Shergill &Chen 2005). Consumer Online Decision Making Process The decision making process of consumers consists of the following steps: Need Recognition Pre Purchase Search Evaluation of Alternatives Advantages of Online Shopping Online shopping is considered to be advantageous, and several people are involved in online shopping. People purchase clothes and many more things from the internet due to the several advantages of online shopping, some of these advantages are mentioned below: Convenience Online shopping is convenient for people in many ways, like the working class who don’t have time for going out for shopping, can easily order things online. They can buy all the necessary products including household things, grocery, machinery, electronic items, as well as a car. So it is really convenient. Privacy and Control Privacy is another advantage of online shopping, that these days online stores make sure that they take all possible measures to provide privacy to their customers. None of the information regarding transactions as well as the financial details is leaked; proper care is taken of it. Trust and Security There are several well-known online stores available which are trustworthy like eBay and Amazon. In the same way, several fashion brands are being sold online, which take care of the security of their customers. Time Saving Online shopping is time saving, as consumers do not have to travel and spend time in stores for looking out for the products they need. They can easily search through internet and purchase whatever they want by just clicking using their own mouse. Disadvantages of Online Shopping Online shopping has a few disadvantages as well, which are listed below: Risk The touch sense is missing Fraud Lack of Awareness Pitfalls of Fashion Marketing Marketing is the backbone of fashion industry, the better the marketing better the sales of fashion world gets. For marketing the fashion industry different magazines are published, fashion shows are organized and many different marketing strategies are also used. Sales can be increased by using better marketing strategies to attract more customers. For the growth of any industry it is very necessary that customers get continuously aware about the products and brands, as well as about the innovations and changes being brought in the products. They should be loyal to their customers while marketing their products, in order to develop long term relations with their customers. Many times the companies fail to communicate properly with their customers, which is one of the biggest pitfalls of fashion marketing. Secondly, sometimes the fashion world uses false information to attract customers, but this leads them towards breaking the trust of their customers (Chen & Liang, 2006). Conclusion The fashion industry is growing day by day, and the brands and companies have to make sure that they keep on bringing changes and innovation in their products so as to maintain its position in the market. Marketing can be improved by taking advantage of internet, as these days it is considered to be the best medium of communication between organizations and customers. Awareness of brands can be best done through internet, as it can help in targeting more audience. Online shopping stores and online sales are highly beneficial for customers as well as organization. It should be improved more, and companies should make sure that they fulfill the need and requirements of their customers by providing them with all that they want. They should make sure that the delivery, quality, trust, privacy and convenience of customers are not sacrificed at any cost. The adoption of fashion can be determined by using the different consumer behavior models which show that consumers behave for certain products in response to their awareness of any product and how this affects their decision making process. References Chen, D., & Liang, H. 2006. 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