Mr Le – College Essay Example

fit very well with a new active-wear line as the products are aimed at women who desire quality sports wear, looking for apparel that was stylish and up-to-date with growing social trends.

Vigor styles have always been less traditional than the other Harrington brands, and management firmly believes that the Vigor division has the ability to branch out and support a slightly cheaper, more casual product line. Studies conducted by Harrington Collection's found evidence to support that much of its current customer base were looking for meeting fresh and comfortable, that would fit with their active lifestyles. A new advertising strategy could easily incorporate a new branch off into active sports wear, for the professional career woman who requires apparel for the active parts of life.

In addition the proposed sales strategy is to offer active-wear pieces below current Vigor price points (between $40 and $100), was supported by surveys conducted to be receptive to current customers without cheapening the brand name. Senior management at Harrington Collection's believed that the production of the new reduce offerings should not be outsourced in order to preserve current competitive advantages of strict quality control and turnaround times. However there are significant cost advantages observed with outsourcing manufacturing: low labor costs, Ana reach capital spelling on maturating Tactless.

In order to Areola the advantages of both in-house manufacturing and outsourcing, management decided that the optimal strategy was to rent production plants in Mexico to produce the active-wear line. This would enable substantial reductions in production costs (although still slightly higher then China), and still maintain fast turnaround times uh to the close proximity to U. S retail outlets. These

fast turnaround times are necessary to addressing the short life cycles of women's apparel and the demand for new designs to be introduced swiftly.

According to customer research surveys, less than 2% of respondents felt that a less-expensive active-wear line would cheapen the brand. The product line itself fits very well into the marketing strategy for the desired Vigor image as well, so there would be little impact on the Vigor brand name. 2) What are the potential retail trade and competitor reactions? Are there any potential channel conflict issues? A new active-wear line offered by Vigor could cause some potential reactions from competitors and retail traders.

The women's apparel market is highly competitive. With the launch of a new active-wear line from Harrington Collection's, more and more competitors will start to realize the potential value in in producing an active-wear line of their own. The active-wear market is growing so rapidly (expected to double turnover from 2007 to 2009), that eventually all of Harrington competitors would likely be expected to launch a line of their own, relying on existing brand loyalty and high-scale advertising campaigns to capture racket share and move units.

With such high levels of product differentiation between products and an already concentrate industry, it would be difficult for Harrington Collection's to stand out and secure market share for the new active-wear line, without significant costs towards an effective advertising and marketing campaign. Harrington would most likely need to build on the existing customer base and/or appeal to consumers in an untargeted market space. For example high-end quality active sports wear.

Further reactions from competitors could be to provide cheaper alternatives that

may appear similar to the offering provided by the Vigor rand. The result of this could be possible price wars to obtain market share due to the highly competitive nature of the women's clothing industry. Retailers for women's apparel include department stores (Macy's), discounters (Marshall), mass merchandisers (Wall-Mart), specialist stores (Ann Taylor) and warehouse clubs/ supertankers (Cost).

The existing channels for the sales of Harrington products are the various retail stores (upscale department and specialist stores), the 50 company run Vigor stores, and also the e-commerce sites dedicated for sales of products for each individual division of Harrington Collection's. The possible channel conflicts that may arise when introducing the active-wear line is that since the prices are generally lower for all products in the line, the current retailers may not wish to stock the cheaper products.