Date:- 27/07/10

Group no:- 4

MARKETING MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT

Topic :- ASOS The Online Fashion Store

Number of words – 2288

SUBMITTED BY:-

ISHAN GHOSH

KUNDAN KUMAR

SUBMITTED TO:- KHYATI GAUTAM

RESP.SHAM SHARMA SIR JAYBIR KR. MAHTO

FACULTY, IPM(MERRUT) KUMAR AMRITANSU

KANIKA JAIN

Institute of productivity & management 1

meerut

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

“Work is Worship” as it says a tremendous effort had been put to write this report . Although we have worked out the report in one day but it took nearly two weeks to do a research analysis on the topic. Though my team is involved in writing this report but there are so many people who contribute directly or indirectly to success of this report Further on behalf of my team I acknowledge great sense of gratitude towards our prof Mr Sham Sharma for giving us time guidance and support.

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CONTENTS

Title 1

Acknowledgement 2

Contents 3

Terms of references 4

Introduction and Brief History 5-6

Body 6-10

SWOT Analysis

Question & Answers

Recommendation 12

Conclusion 13

Bibliography 14

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Terms of Reference

On behalf of the whole team I want to thanks our faculty and guide Mr. Sham Sharma Sir who gave us this challenging assignment on ASOS The online fashion store The assignment push us beyond our limit and helps us to understand the broad spectrum of marketing. This assignment also helps us to know how a product sold in market and how market analysis is done.

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Introduction

ASOS .com is UKs largest online fashion retailer. It offer its own branded fashion and designer cloths . Its headquarters are in Camden town in North London. The company was set up in June 2000 with the help of just two people .They used to bring latest fashion trends to shoppers as quick as possible It gradually grow at a fast pace in market and became UKs largest online fashion retailer. Its stocks over 22000 products styles and introduces 1000 new products to its range each week. The online retailer target audiences who are between 16 – 34 years .On asos .com there are 9000 products available at any one time, with 450 new fashion item added every week. These include women fashion, menswear, accessories, jewellery and beauty products asos.com attracts 3.3 million unique shoppers every month and has 1.8 million registered users ASOS. com provides customer convenience of purchase. For that it uses high technology which helps to increase sales by providing easy navigation around the websites and helpful tools like the “catwalk” so that item can be seen on moving models. Five years ago asos.com had used 550 square meters of warehouse space Today to meet the growing demand asos now has 32500 square meters of warehouse space – equivalent in area to nearly five football pitches . In April 2005 asos.com employed 47 permanent staff . By February 2008 asos.com has 250 employees.

Board of directors

Honorary Life President - Marc Trundley Chairman - Waheed Alli Chief Executive - Nick Robertson Finance Director and Company Secretary - Nick Beighton Non-Executive Director - Peter Williams International Director - Jon Kamaluddin Product and Trading Director - Robert Bready Non-Executive Director - Karen Jones Non-Executive Director - Mary Turner

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Brief History

2000 ASOS launched

2001 ASOS PLC Holdings was admitted to AIM on the London Stock Exchange

2004 Maiden profit

2004 Introduced ASOS own label for Women

2005 Launched ASOS Beauty

2005 Bunce field Fuel Depot explosion closes business for 6 weeks

2006 First UK online store to launch catwalk2007 Launched ASOS Magazine

2007 Introduced ASOS own label for Men

2008 Launched ASOS Outlet

2009 Launched Little ASOS and Designer Store

2009 Launched ASOS Life

2010 Achieved Carbon Neutral® company status

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BODY

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTH:-

1. Diversified product style range-it stocks over 22000.

2. Direct online selling.

3. Use of high technology helps to increasing sales.

WEAKNESSES:-

1. Website needs to be updated.

2. Difficult to keep a track record of large customer.

3. Having diversified product it is difficult to keep attention on a particular product.

OPERTUNITIES :-

1. Reach to large customer base.

2. Opportunity in tire 2 cities also.

THREATS:-

1. Sudden change in taste & preference of customer.

2. Increase in competition.

3 .Some products are seasonal. 7

QUESTION & ANSWERS

1. What do you understand by product life cycle? Illustrate your answers using an example of an fashion retail you have bought .

2. How is the knowledge of the product life cycle useful to managers in planning the launch and ongoing support for new product?

3 .Using the ASOS .com website, analyze the types of approaches that might be adopted while promoting a clothing range online.

4. What consideration should ASOS .Com take into account when deciding whether to spend more on promoting particular products ?Refers to Boston Matrix when answering this question

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1. What do you understand by product life cycle? Illustrate your answers using an example of a fashion retail you have bought.

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ANS:- The product life cycle shows the various stages the product goes for a period of time during its sales. For any company Product life cycle is an important tool to analyze the market situation

Arvind Mills, the flagship company of the Lalbhai Group, is one of India's leading composite manufacturer of textiles. Its headquarters is in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. It manufactures a range of cotton shirting, denim, knits and bottomweights (Khakis) fabrics.

Lets explain it with an example

Product life cycle of denim jeans

Arvind Mills was established in 1931. It was founded by the three brothers Kasturbhai Lalbhai, Narottambhai Lalbhai and Chimanbhai Lalbhai one of the leading families of Ahmedabad.They manufacture denim jeans

INTRO:- 1987 – The Company introduced denim jeans in market. As a new product took it needs a lot of promotion and lot of funding AS a modernisation programme company triple the production of denim cloth and to produce double yarn fabrics for exports. The new product groups identified were the indigo dyed blue denim, high quality two-ply fabrics for exports, and special products

GROWTH:- 1991 – Arvind reached 100 million meters of denim per year,customer started liking the product

MATURITY :-After a certain time it grab the market share and becoming the fourth largest producer of denim in the world.

Some production steps it took –

1992 – The Company increased the production of denim cloth by 23,000 tonnes per day by modernising the plant located at Khatraj of Ankur Textiles

DECLINE :- The Company reported a fire in the goods godown & folding packing department in Naroda Road unit of the company.Further company also lost market share as new competitors arise as well as customer taste and preference change 9

2. How is the knowledge of the product life cycle useful to managers in planning the launch and ongoing support for new product?

ANS:- Knowledge of product life cycle helps managers in many ways . With the help of product life cycle manages can analyze the market . They can understand what are the opportunities that are prevailing in market.Product life cycle basically involves five stages

Picture Source :- www.google.com

10 Introduction stage , growth stage , maturity stage , saturation stage

Introduction stage :-

A new product is launch in market .It will face stiff competition from various other brands in market less stocks and need lots of sales promotion

Growth stage :- After introducing in market product demand gradually increases. Product capturing customer attention and customer start taking interest on the product

Maturity stage:- In this stage product has created a brand image in the market and in this stage product began to diversify.

Saturation:- It is the stage when product has achieved the highest stage of growth and there is no scope to diversify.With this knowledge managers can forecast future and make further improvements on the products .

3. Using the ASOS .com website, analyze the types of approaches that might be adopted while promoting a clothing range online.

ANS:- In order to promote various fashion cloth in market ASOS should adopt different strategies . In addition to direct marketing it should also use some other social networking websites like facebook ,Ibibo, orkut , twitter where it promote its products . It should give lot of advertisement in order to attract online customer Secondly magazines are a good source of promotion specially fashion magazines which are read by people under age group 16 year-34 years who are its target audiences. Further newspapers also plays an important role in promoting the product As newspapers are read by mainly most of the people . In the new era companies are using various celebrities to promote its products in market ASOS.com can also adopt the policy of giving various offers like seasonal discounts, discounts on buying a certain quantity of product as well as it can also provide discounts to the existing customer on his birthday during sales

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4.What consideration should ASOS .Com take into account when deciding whether to spend more on promoting particular products ?Refers to Boston Matrix when answering this question

ANS:- Boston matrix helps ASOS com to plan strategies which will help to manage its products. In this matrix basically four stages involves

Question mark In this stage product is just launch and new in the market they may or may not click in market

Star stage products do well and grab customer attention

Dog stage product is a poor performer as it fails to launch in market or in the decline stage

Cash flow stage In this stage product continue to do well in market

So starting from question mark stage should ASOS.com should havily invest in promoting the product as its just launch in market. In star stage product is a star performer it needs little investment for promotion In dog stage product fail to launch in market or in the declining stage so ASOS.com should change its plan an innovate some new products and invests in promoting those products.

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RECOMMENDATION

ASOS has enjoyed significant success and growth in its first 10 years. With this growth and success we have seen a great deal of change in our business, not least in the number and location having national and international customers

With such benefits comes great responsibility. Asos.com have a responsibility to our supply partners, customers, colleagues and shareholders to ensure that ASOS products are produced in acceptable conditions and in an ethical way. In this way asos had also responsibility towards society. therefore the steps it took as a corporate social responsibility initiative

1. Child labour shall not be used

2. ASOS wants fashion to be cruelty free

3. No harsh or inhumane treatment is allowed

4. Environment protection initiative

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CONCLUSION

We all know that fashion is a rapidly moving market . Hence it is very difficult to keep a track record of customer as its taste and preference changes . ASOS.com demonstrates the growing trend for online shopping. The number of online customers keeps on increasing who do online purchasing. While continue to be a leader in online fashion in market in UK It offered a variety of product styles. In these 10 years asos maintain its status in market and use Product Life Cycle and Boston Matrix effectively to analyze the market and forecast the future . These tools helps asos.com to reach its target customers , regular updating its product as well as launch new products ASOS maintains its brand loyalty which ensures its customers will return to ASOS.com website

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BIBILOGRAPHY

www.thetimes100.co.uk

www.asos.com

Marketing Management Philip Kotler

Case study ASOS the online fashion store

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