White Choc's Marketing Plan
...pparel and accessories in Bangkok area. • Accessibility: The central location and wide range of business hours designed to accommodate all customer's needs. • Customer service: The patron will be impressed with the degree of care that they receive. White Choc also offers to exchange or refund the products that are not satisfied within 3 days after purchasing.* * This service will be more described in the section 4.5. 3.1.3 Market Trends Although the market trend for women's fashionable apparel always changes and has wide color collection, black and white are never out of style, also black and white trend is easily matched to other apparel and accessories. This gives White Choc the ideal of making black and white collection to be the trendiest style and this is great for the fashion lover because it allows them to be fashionable but distinctive in black and white. 3.1.4 Market Growth The market for women's apparel is a strong, steady growing market. It is generally not affected by economic downturns. Women seem to consume apparel regardless of the economic climate. In a popular mini-series, Shopaholic, a women's habit of buying apparel was described as a release when they are feeling bad, a way to make them feel better, similar to eating chocolate. While this stereotype might not be entirely accurate, women love their apparel and cannot seem to get enough. 3.2 SWOT Analysis The following SWOT analysis captures the key strengths and weaknesses within the company, and describes the opportunities and threats facing White Choc. 3.2.1 Strengths • Great designers who can design apparel and accessories to fit customer’s need. • The unique design that uses only black and white as primary color. • Excellent staff who are well trained and customer attentive. They also get great discounts, increasing job satisfaction. • An efficient, stylish store. 3.2.2 Weaknesses • The struggle to build brand awareness. • The inability to provide instant gratification by having all sizes in stock because of limited amount per style. • Forecasting fashion is difficult but necessary to profitability. • Less variety of the colors of apparel. 3.2.3 Opportunities • A growing segment of the market that is more aware of fashion, resulting from the government’s campaign, “Bangkok Fashion City.” • An industry that seems immune to recessions. 3.2.4 Threats • The increasing introduction of a competitor to the Bangkok market with a similar business model, also resulting from the government’s campaign, “Bangkok Fashion City.” • Completely misjudging where fashion is headed. 3.3 Competition and Buying Patterns White Choc has two direct competitors in Bangkok: • MNG: This store is considered to be the toughest competitors, for it is an international franchise that has already widely accepted in Bangkok. It has a nice selection of colorful apparel and accessories but a poor selection of black and white. Also some of its collections don’t match Thai weather as the fact that its original is from European country. It has many branches in Bangkok which means there will be a number of products with the same style. This might not good for customers who want to be distinctive, for too many copies of its patterns. Price of MNG’s products are around THB 890-3,500 for apparel and THB 500-3,000 for accessories. • Soda: This store is one of original Thai brand that is very successful in this business. Its fashion is unique and trendy and also has limited amount of products per style. Although it has some black and white collection, there are not as many as styles to choose from. Its price is also very expensive compare to its competitors. Price of Soda’s products are around THB 1,200-5,000 for apparel and THB 700-4,500 for accessories. The buying habits for fashion-conscious women consist of typically buying at least one cloth per month. Women generally purchase the cloth to go with a specific event. Once the woman purchases the cloth she will then begin the long search for the perfect pair of shoes and accessories which all will be provide at White Choc store. 3.4 Keys to Success The key to success is to meet the demand for an upscale women's apparel store with a fashionable collection and focused customer attention. • Fashionable designs. • Well-trained employees. • Selection. 3.5 Critical Issues White Choc is still in the speculative stages as an apparel store. Its critical issues are to continue to take a modest fiscal approach; expand at a reasonable rate, not for the sake of expansion in itself, but because it is fiscally prudent to. 4.0 Marketing Strategy Part of White Choc’s marketing strategy will be based solely on location. White Choc is located in The Emporium that receives abundant walk-through traffic. This location will cost a premium but it is worth investing. Another form of marketing to be described later in detail will be advertising. The strategy of the marketing campaign is to increase the target customer's awareness of White Choc. 4.1 Mission White Choc’s mission is to provide Bangkok with an upscale collection of black and white women's apparel and outstanding customer service. We exist to attract and maintain customers. When we adhere to this maxim, everything else will fall into place. Our services will exceed the expectations of our customers. 4.2 Marketing Objectives • Increase repeat customers by 7% per quarter. • Decrease customer acquisition costs by 8% per year. • Build an effective pull campaign, bringing in new customers at an increased rate of 9% per quarter. 4.3 Financial Objectives • Experience a double digit growth rate for the first three years. • Reduce store overhead by 5% each year. • Reach profitability by the end of year two. 4.4 Target Markets White Choc is targeting two population segments within the broad category of the fashion conscious female with disposable income. • Professionals: these are full time working professional women. They typically earn more than THB 20,000 per month themselves. They will purchase apparel for the workplace as well as for leisure time. This group is being targeted as they work full time and therefore have the need for many different apparel for all of their different events. They also have the ability to spend on apparel and accessories and will take advantage of this reality as women typically love to shop fashionable outfits. • Teenagers: this segment has some of disposable income because of their parents. These teenagers love fashion, and spend fair amounts of time shopping for apparel and accessories. The income of this group is over THB 8,000 per month. Although this group has the lower income they are attractive because they have ability and time to shop for apparel and accessories. With both money and time, there is no limit to the number of cool apparel that they would like to own. 4.5 Positioning and Perceptual Maps White Choc will position itself as the premier store for women's fashionable apparel and accessories, providing Bangkok with the fashionable collection, rivaling some of the boutiques in Bangkok. Passion Soles will leverage their competitive edge to achieve this desired positioning. • Black & White and Trendy: White Choc's competitive edge is an unmatched collection in Bangkok. This collection will be achieved in two ways. The first is a very specific effort to design the black and white apparel as trendy styles as possible. White Choc recognizes that Bangkok currently does not have a single store that offers a wide selection of black and white apparel for the fashion conscious woman consumer. The competitive edge is the recognition of this unserved niche and the serving of this demand. • Customer Service and Price: White Choc will also provide its customers great service; especially, the refunding and exchanging of goods that are not satisfied. This is a brand new trend of service in Bangkok because generally, almost every store in Bangkok will not accept the returning of goods. Although some might be willing to exchange they will never be full refund. White Choc wants its customer to have full satisfaction; as a result, it will guarantee of exchanging or full refunding of goods. This service will provide to the customers with no extra charge; thus, its price will remain competitive compare to its competitors. The conditions for this service are to exchange or refund within 3 days after purchasing, have to bring the receipt with them, and the products must still have the tag labels on. 4.6 Strategies White Choc's marketing strategy will seek to create customer awareness regarding the products that they offer, develop the customer base, and work toward building customer loyalty and referrals. The message that White Choc will seek to communicate is that they offer the trendiest collection of fashionable women's apparel and accessories in Bangkok. The first method that White Choc will use to communicate this is location. White Choc has chosen an upscale, trendy mall, The Emporium that receives a lot of walk through traffic. This generates large amounts of visibility for White Choc. Another method of communication is advertisements in fashion magazines. The advertisements will be placed in the fashion section whose readership is primarily women. 4.7 Marketing Mix White Choc marketing mix is comprised of the following approaches to pricing, distribution, advertising and promotion, and product and customer service. 4.7.1 Pricing Though our prices are competitive, we do not compete on price. We will compete on the quality of the products and customer service. 4.7.2 Distribution White Choc conducts a direct distribution channel which means all apparel and accessories will be distributed to White Choc store front. This diagram illustrates the flow of materials and White Choc’s product. Fabric and material factory will deliver supplies to white Choc’s apparel factory to assemble. The finished apparel and also shoes, handbags, and other accessories that are sent from supplies factory, will then transfer to White Choc’s warehouse. Then, all the products will be sent to White Choc’s store in The Emporium. Since, White Choc use direct distribution channel, it emphasizes the important of location. White Choc is located in The Emporium, a center of brand name stores where most of movie stars and upscale people usually go shopping. Those people are our target market. The store is located on the second floor in plaza area as if the store is in the mall it will get charged 20% of sales. The Emporium is in the center of the city where transportation is very convenient. Customers can get to The Emporium by cars or BTS. The Emporium provides great spaces of parking; therefore, trouble of finding parking space like other small shopping mall is not an issue for its customers. And customers who travel by BTS can enter to the second floor where the store is located. 4.7.3 Advertising and promotion White choc’s advertising and promotion plan will be: First step (before shop is opened) • Ten days before shop is opened, leaflet will be given to customers visiting at The Emporium and Siam Square, and the advertising poster of its store will be posted at many places, such as Siam Square and The Emporium itself. Second step (first day to the first 3 days of store operation) • On the first day, there will be a fashion show on the second floor at The Emporium. VIP guesses and hi-society people will be invited. • Within the first 3 days of store operation, customers who spend THB 5,000 or over in one day will receive a member card for free. Third step (fourth day and go on) • Member customers can collect point from their purchasing and use those points to get gift vouchers. The condition is: o Every THB 1,000 will get 1 point and collect 10 points (THB 10,000) within 2 months will get THB 1,000 gift voucher. • During season holiday (New Year and Christmas) White Choc will have special promotion which is: o Customers who spend more than THB 1,000 will have a chance to draw for special prizes which are: The grand prize is THB 10,000 gift voucher 1 prize The second prize is 50% off voucher* 3 prizes The third prize is buy one get one free.** 10 prizes The fourth prize is 5% off voucher for any product purchased. No limit • White Choc will also continually advertising in the popular fashion magazines whose readership is primarily women. * For the bill that is not over THB 10,000 **The price of free product must not be over the purchased product. 4.7.4 Products and customer service White Choc’s products will be a wide selection of black and white apparel and accessories which are trendy and distinctive from the other fashion stores. White Choc will use only black and white color to make apparel and accessories so that its customers will have the most fashionable of black and white collection to choose from and each style will have limited amount. Moreover, its customer service will exceed customer's expectations because of its well trained staff. 4.8 Marketing Research During the initial phases of the marketing plan development, several focus groups were carried out to help gain insight into the most prized customer and some of their decision-making processes as they relate to apparel and accessories purchases. The information collected from the focus groups has been extremely helpful to White Choc and help justify the business model. An additional source of market research ...