[The Explorative Study of Marketing Strategies Adopted By Fashion Retail Industry in the UK: A Case Study of Mark and Spencer]

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Acknowledgement

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

DECLARATION

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Abstract

In today's high street fashion competition fashion retailers are adopting strategies to compete and survive in order to capture and maintain market share. Being a seasonal and highly volatile market the fashion market is always vulnerable to the concept of 'fading-out'. Everyday a new design, style, fad or fashion develops and becomes hype hence fading out the previous fashion. The retailers that keep up the pace of this fast development and creativity manage to survive, while those left behind, become extinct. This paper examines the marketing strategies that fashion retailers would adopt to compete in the international market. From the process of internationalisation, to devising brand strategies, to taking the right decisions of brand management, all of the issues are equally important and carry immense importance. Although there are many dimensions of brand management, but only three major themes are highlighted in this paper, which prove vital for the success of fashion retail brand.

Table of Content

Chapter 1: Introduction6

Research Questions8

Chapter 2: Literature Review10

Retail Internationalisation10

Motives to go international11

Fashion Retailing13

Marketing Strategy Concept15

Brand Management17

Brand Premium/Added value18

Corporate Identity19

Conceptual Framework20

Chapter 3: Research methodology22

Synopsis of research findings23

References24

Chapter 1: Introduction

With the advent of the 21st century, and the new phenomenon of globalisation, the world markets have become closer and are shrinking in size and getting highly saturated yet volatile. This gives rise to competition and survival of the fittest makes the competition even more intense. This is the exact scenario at the current retail sector of the world. With the high street wars amongst the retail giants, the ever increasing competition not only gives rise to more options but much better presentation for a customer to choose from. Hence, the bigger retail giants make low budget retailers difficult for them to survive. Furthermore, in order to survive in this high paced and intensely competitive market place there is a need to design a marketing strategy with a clear differentiating stance. Global retail sector has seen a tremendous growth in the last few decades.

The global retailing industry group grew by 4.9 percent in 2003 to reach a value of £4.68 trillion. Historically retail operation has been limited to a national level, as every country had a distinct national retail system. However, due to expansion of markets and rise in accessibility, the scope of retailing operation is becoming more international. Cross country retail operations has been going on since long and as a result of international exposure, the Internationalisation of Retailing has ...