Lingerie has also traditionally been a well-selling product and in the past year, sales of womens lingerie have increased: only slips and camisoles declined falling by 4%. The Manchester store offers an advanced measuring service that involves staff fitting women by sight, rather than using a tape measure. This seems to be a popular service and sales are currently high so marks and Spencer should concentrate on increasing lingerie sales as well, particularly during the party season, when women are buying new underwear to wear with party dresses. Lingerie is strong business for M&S and as all lines of lingerie are currently successful and appeal to women of all ages. The Manchester store dedicates a large amount of floor space to lingerie, as this is obviously a successful product: Marks and Spencer should aim to increase underwear sales by 10%.
It has been calculated that in the Manchester store, women buy 55% of menswear so if an increasing number of women are attracted into the store, hopefully, sales of menswear will increase. Successful lines in menswear include the ‘Italian’ range that offers formal wear. As formal wear should sell well as Christmas time, Marks and Spencer should aim to increase sales of this brand by 5%.
Internal Environment.
The shop floor in Manchester is divided into a number of different product ranges and amongst other services, such as a coffee shop and a financial services centre, three floors stock clothes. The front of the store offers the ‘Limited Collection’, which promises ‘The latest styles and fashionable trends for sassy, modern women’. This range seems to comprise of basic ‘essential’ women’s clothes: black trousers, flattering dresses, V-neck jumpers etc. The slogan suggests that this line is aimed at younger women but I saw mostly 40+ women shopping in this area. The store also stocks the ‘Per Una' line, which appeals to the 30-50 age range. At the moment, this brand seems to be concentrating on party wear for the Christmas season: ‘A stylish collection of elegant and sophisticated evening dresses’. There is also the ‘Per Una Due’ range which aims at the teenage market. My observation of the Manchester store suggests that this range is not selling well. This clothing line is placed near the ‘Limited collection’ line, which is unappealing to the younger market. Teenagers do not want to shop in a place which sells seemingly frumpy ‘middle age’ clothes. Menswear is not places near the front of the store because men are not the target market: M&S seem to be appealing to women and relay on women coming into the store to buy clothes their partners.
There seemed to be too many different clothing ranges on offer and the shop floor was over-crowded with products. This gave the shop a chaotic feel, which would appeal to teenagers but not to the more sophisticated middle-aged women who make up the core target market.
Lingerie dominates a large section of the second floor. Here M&S seem to be successfully appealing to women of all ages with a large number of product lines. ‘Ceriso’ targets the younger, teenage market, ‘Truly you’ offers basic, everyday underwear and more sophisticated styles are also offered, with brands such as ‘Salon Rose’, ‘Wild hearts’ and ‘Dolce Vita.’ There seemed to be more teenagers in the underwear department than in the clothing section ‘Per Una Due’, which should appeal directly to them. I think this because M&S have a long-standing reputation for producing good-quality underwear: in contrast, M&S’ clothing reputation declined after production was moved to the Far East.
One reason why the ‘Per Una Due’ range doesn’t seem to be doing well is because the store is Manchester is surrounded by competition: H&M, Miss Selfridge, Zara and TopShop are all within 5 minutes walking distance of the store. There are also an increasing number of shops appearing in Manchester, which appeals to M&S’ target market of middle-aged women with stores such as BHS and Debenhams placed nearby. In terms of competition, M&S is in an extremely competitive location- there is a large amount of rival stores, which compete with M&S on price, quality, product lines and services.
External Environment.
In recent years, the M&S store in Manchester has faced an increasing amount of competition. Debenhams (‘Britain’s favourite department store’) has experienced an increase in sales and reputation after introducing the successful ‘Designers at Debenhams’ ranges, which offers designer clothes at ‘everyday’ prices. Although M&S stock ‘Autograph’, which is designed by Amanda Wakely, this line is extremely limited and is placed near to the back of the store. They do not stock a wide range of well-known up-market brands such as Matthew Williamson and Julian Macdonald. Debenhams can therefore compete with M&S in terms of product ranges: consumers may be more likely to shop at Debhanhams because they offer clothes which have a good reputation and will give them more status. Furthermore, Debenhams, designer clothes are of a similar price to M&S’ non-designer ranges. In a competitive market, price is very important as generally, clothes are price elastic and demand will greatly change depending on the price. I think this is the major reason why M&S’ ‘Per Una Due’ range has not been successful: the prices are too high for teenagers who are not earning a high, regular wage and are extremely price-sensitive. Shops such as H&M and TopShop, which offer similar products to M&S but at a lower price are more likely to appeal to them. This is something that M&S need to address if they are going to try to appeal to the teen market.
Below is a price comparison of M&S products, compared to the nearest rival:
Clearly, BHS and H&M compete on price, and aim to keep prices a s low as possible to boost demand. M&S’ and Debenhams’ prices are very similar but customers may be more obliged to pay Debenhams prices because a recognised designer produces them. In order to increase demand, therefore, M&S should either lower prices or change the products to give customers more value for money. (eg: contract new designers)
Suggested Strategy.
Clearly, M&S do not have time to change product lines in 3 weeks. Therefore, in order to increase demand, prices should be lowered. If M&S is aiming to increase sales in areas which are already popular, changes to price need to be made to these products. Eg: ‘£10 off all dresses in the Per Una' range. This should appeal to women (the target market) and is relevant to the Christmas season, when these dresses are likely to be in higher demand. However, party dresses will not wanted in January so this is a good product to reduce the price of because M&S want to ensure as many dresses as possible can be sold when demand is high. They do not want to be faced with a large amount of dresses in the New Year, which won’t sell and will lead to decreased profitability due to obsolete stock. M&S could also introduce promotions to sell more lingerie- eg: 20% off all underwear. This is a good strategy because all the underwear lines are popular so offering money off will hopefully appeal to women of all ages, leading to increased custom from a wider variety of consumers which should lead to increased profits. The Manchester store has an advantage in the fact that it is much larger than the competitor stores and can display large point of sales displays in the window to attract consumers inside. Hopefully, these promotions should attract women who already buy their clothes in M&S, as well as new customers who will have heard of lines such as ‘Per Una’ current success and good reputation. Hopefully, if women are attracted into the store due to these offers, they may make other full-price purchases, eg: in the menswear section. M&S could also offer 20% off menswear to further encourage these lines to sell.
Of course, competitors, such as Debenhams are also likely to have similar advertising campaigns in the run up to Christmas. M&S could hold their advertising campaign at the same time as rivals to try and attract people away from their stores. However, this may mean that fewer people go to M&S as they have a greater variety of sales to go to. This is why it is particularly importing to sell items which customers actually want to buy, rather than giving money off their unpopular lines.
M&S will want to attract consumers from other firms into their store but may also want to appeal to their existing customers. They could do this by giving loyalty card holders an extra 15% off. Hopefully, this should make loyal customers feel that they are valued by M&S so they continue to bring repeat custom, even after the Christmas season is over.
Review of Strategy.
To decide if the strategy will be a success, M&S could compare their pre-Christmas sales to rivals’ figures, such as Debenhams. This means that they will be ensuring they keep up with the competitors in their market. a problem with this is that Debenhams is not currently experiences a decline in sales so may have aimed for much higher increases in profit than M&S have. Alternaively, they could compare figures from last year to see if the promotional changes to some lines had any real benefit to he firm as a whole. An increase in profits would obviously indicate a success. They may want to carry out some market research in the New Year and ask customers what they thought of the promotional Christmas campaign. If results are generally positive, M&S could use similar tactics next year.
