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RETAIL MARKETING
(OPENING A NEW RETAIL STORE)
BA (HONS) BUSINESS STUDIES

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Retail Marketing Opening a new retail store

Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................2
2.0 Marketing Strategy....................................................................................................................2
2.1 Target Market......................................................................................................................2
2.2 Positioning Strategy............................................................................................................3
2.3 The Differentiators..............................................................................................................3
3.0 Business Planning......................................................................................................................3
3.1 Startup Costs and Requirements.........................................................................................3
3.2 Business Operations...........................................................................................................4
3.3 Product Innovation.............................................................................................................4
3.4 Lead Generation Plan.........................................................................................................5
3.5 Customer Services..............................................................................................................6
3.6 Brand Elements...................................................................................................................6
3.7 Financial Plan.....................................................................................................................7
4.0 Environmental Analyses............................................................................................................9
4.1 PEST Analysis....................................................................................................................9
4.2 SWOT Analysis..................................................................................................................9
5.0 Industry Analysis.....................................................................................................................10
5.1 New Market Entrants........................................................................................................10
5.2 Existing Market Rivalry....................................................................................................11
5.3 Threat of Substitute Products............................................................................................11
5.4 Powers of Suppliers and Buyers to Bargain.....................................................................12
6.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13
Appendices....................................................................................................................................14
Appendix A.............................................................................................................................14

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1.0 Introduction
Slough Fashion District is looking to impact the buying behavior of the residents of Slough by
the products that are consciously selected to satisfy the apparel needs of the Asian population of
the region. The store is planning to accomplish its aims through effective viral marketing,
fortified market visibility, and enhanced sale strategies. The business will focus on the value
creation for the target customers through quality products and services provided at the store.
They key goals of the business of Slough Fashion District would be:
o Establishing long-term relationships with the customers, investors and the other
stakeholders of Slough Fashion District
o Growing the business sales to nearly 300,000 by the end of third year of operations
o Increasing the customer satisfaction and trust on the store by providing products and
services required to them
o Attracting more customers to the store by increasing the referrals
o Sponsoring at least one major event in the region targeting the resident students
o Establishing a web store by the end of fourth year of business operations offering value
services for the customers

2.0 Marketing Strategy

2.1 Target Market
The customers whom Slough Fashion District is targeting to attract and facilitate are the Asian
community of the area. The 37.9% population of the region of the total 140,200 (ONS Census,
2011) are Asians including Indians, Pakistanis, Bengalis, Chinese and other Asian communities
who need to travel to London to shop for their clothing needs and this store would be a blessing
for these people and particularly the students living in this area would be the potential customers.
Providing them with the local brands in accordance to the latest fashion on a price that is
affordable to them by carefully selecting the product range and the supplier is how the Slough
Fashion District aiming to accomplish this goal. The traits which make Slough an ideal market
for Slough Fashion District include the proportion of the target community in the region, the
larger student population residing in Slough and the unavailability of any large clothing store in
the region.
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2.2 Positioning Strategy

The business positioning strategy of Slough Fashion District is based primarily to be identified as
a store which is operating for the betterment of the environment and also the local garment
manufacturers. The clothing range available at the store would be carefully selected to meet the
store standards and also the limitations of the target communities which are majorly the Asians
residing in Slough.

2.3 The Differentiators

Slough Fashion District would be the only clothing store within the 200 mile radius of its
intended location offering items which are produced on a mass scale but also coming from
individual designers and crafts people. The source of each product will be clearly and openly
advertised in order for the customer to know from where the cloths belong and how using these
products would be effective in making a socially and environmentally conscious choice (Ottman,
2011). Purchasing the local brands not only serve the monetary concerns of the population but
also reduce the ill effect of globalization in the clothing sector. The customers will be provided
with detailed information of each brand producers, their stories and also the product price for the
customers to compare them with other options available. The low environmental cost of the
products available at the Slough Fashion District are contributed by the local production, at first
point, and the reduced fuel consumption for the product delivery to the store and also the lower
social cost as the labor used to produce these clothing items would be paid legally.

3.0 Business Planning

3.1 Startup Costs and Requirements
Slough Fashion District will be organised as a sole proprietorship business. The startup funding,
costs, and requirements are graphed as follows. The detailed summary in figures is presented in
appendix A.

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14,000
12,000
10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0

Expenses

Assets

Investment

Loan

Figure 1: Startup

3.2 Business Operations

The store will be opened Monday to Friday 10am to 6pm, Saturday and Sunday 11am to 7pm. In
addition, the hour duration will be extended during Eid, Christmas, Easter, and other holidays
with consideration of Asian and Local communities. Slough Fashion District would primarily
operate to nurture the business to produce profits which is planned to be achieved by influencing
the purchase attitudes of the Slough population significantly. The products made available at the
store would be local to promote the importance of the local brands and also the environment
friendly shopping. Creating awareness about the environment would be a competitive edge for
Slough Fashion District being a retail store operating in a way to help society beyond traditional
retailing trends. The store will be accessible and operating in an environment where the customer
feel comfortable shopping as the required attention and guidance would be provided to them at
all points (Sullivan and Adcock, 2002).

3.3 Product Innovation

The Slough Fashion District will be focusing, in the long run, on attracting customers from
different groups and communities other than the basic target society by offering products and
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services which are unique and required (Pride and Ferrell, 2008). The category wise product and
services which are planned to be the most innovative point for Slough Fashion District are as
follows:
Buy them a gift: through this service, the customers would be provided a facility of delivering
their shopping in their desired packing to their loved ones as a gift and this service would be
initially offered for the Slough region only and gradually expanded to other regions of the
country.
The bags used for packing of the different products would be environment friendly and
recyclable to further emphasize on the cause Slough Fashion District will seek to serve.
The suspected customers of the store would be provided with the information of the store
offerings and the local products purchase significance in the present time to make them the
prospective customers of the store through broachers, and advertisements on the local media.
For the loyal customers, the Slough Fashion District would be offering many different schemes
for different situations. Loyalty cards would be one of them which would be offered for the
customers who opt to sign for membership giving them a discount of 10 (Silver Membership), 15
(Gold Membership) and 20 (Diamond Membership) percent depending on the membership type
they select. Further, to drive the word of mouth, customers bringing in the guest customers
would be given 10% discount.
A small counter would be provided near exit where product under the price range of $25 would
be displayed wrapped and ready to be gifted to persuade the impulse buying of the customers as
at this point, attractive cheap range small products like apparel accessories would be appreciated
by the customers.

3.4 Lead Generation Plan

The proposed approaches applied by Slough Fashion District to generate customer leads are as
follows. Print advertisements in the local newspapers providing information about not only the
prices and offers but also the different producers. Local radio advertising would be used that
would focus on information provision to the customers about how Slough Fashion District is
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different from other retail stores. Flyers displaying the new clothing items will be available at
store. Referrals from the existing customers who would be persuaded to bring new customers by
offering them discounts on their purchases

3.5 Customer Services

Employees would be adequately trained at Slough Fashion District in order to provide the
customers with a satisfactory service experience (Seybold, 2001). The zero defects guarantee
offer on entire product lines would add value to generation process for the customers. The
displays in the store indicating the free gift offered by Slough Fashion District on second
purchases would also be communicated effectively by the staff of the store and customers would
be encouraged to provide their name and address to be eligible for this offer. Further customer
identification by the customer services staff of the store would also be effective in this regard and
the gifts offered to the customers would be product of below 1$. Second purchase would lead to
offer by the store to the customer to be a member of the store that would lead to discount on all
purchases valid for five years and the discount offer would depend on the type of membership a
customer opt to receive. For the first time visiting customers, the staff dealing the customer
would inform them about how the Slough Fashion District is different from other stores and why
the local brands are presented at the store.

3.6 Brand Elements

Slough Fashion District would present itself in a way that would be the most distinguishing
element for the brand (Perrey and Spillecke, 2012) and the major aspects would be as follows:
BRAND NAME: Slough Fashion District
MARKETING LOGO: Wear Local, Go Global
VISUAL LOOK: Simple but arresting for the fashion lovers by combining a local and global
theme in a store which is developed for not only the Asian Community of Slough but also the
British population of the region. An outlook that is proposed is presented in the figure I below.

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COLOR THEME: Corresponding to the colors of the environment, greens and blues will make
the most part of the store interior as we want to be a retail outlet serving and saving the
environment in its particular domain. This color theme and the logo as well would be applied on
all the advertising material of the store including the visiting card, price display cards, posters,
outdoor signs etc.
PRODUCTS: T Shirts, Sweat Shirts, Jackets, Uppers, Zippers, Trousers, Scarves, Caps, Gloves,
Pants, etc.

Figure 2: Slough Fashion District, Store Outlook

3.7 Financial Plan

The growth of Slough Fashion District will be modest with positive cash flows. Being a retail
store, Slough Fashion District will not sell products on credit; rather, cash, cheques, and major
credit cards (e.g. Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express) will be accepted.
TeleCheck service will be used to minimize the percentage of loss on dreadful cheques. The key
financial indicators are illustrated in the following charts and the figurative tables are included in
appendix A.
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Retail Marketing Opening a new retail store

350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
0

Year 1

Year 2

Year3

Figure 3: Key financial benchmarks

80,000
70,000
60,000
50,000
Projected Profit 40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0

Year 1

Year 2

Year3

Figure 4: Projected profit/loss

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4.0 Environmental Analyses

4.1 PEST Analysis
The PEST analysis of the Slough Fashion District includes the factors that required careful
consideration while planning for the store in terms of the political, economical, social and
technological requirements (Johnson et al. 2007) that are briefly demonstrated as:
POLITICAL: As the brand name of Slough Fashion District would be dealing in the local
products and local manufacturers, the political concerns would not be an issue and the store
would be paying off all the applicable tax and fees for operations to operate smoothly.
ECONOMICAL: Keeping in mind the global economic situation, Slough Fashion District would
be facing a change of price controlling as the transportation expenses, even of shorter distance,
would be varying time to time, the product pricing and the marketing cost.
SOCIAL: Being a new store in town, the Slough Fashion District would be providing
employment opportunities to the residents and also would be facilitating the living communities
with the attire fashion longings.
TECHNOLOGICAL: The store would be providing the local brands to the customers and thus
garment stitching and packaging would be carried out as per the store requirements.

4.2 SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis is perfectly to investigate any companys strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats (Johnson et al. 2007). The SWOT analysis of the Slough Fashion
District is conducted as follows:
STRENGTHS: One of the main strengths of Slough Fashion District is the comparatively lower
prices which would be maintained by the wholesale purchases done on the part of the store.
Further local products offering and the global impact of these local brands would be strength for
the store. The community its serving resides in larger proportion in Slough and this would also
be strengthening for the store.

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WEAKNESSES: Lack of identity at the first step would be a certain weakness of the store which
would be tackled by effective marketing strategies including advertisements on the radio,
newspapers and television. Further, till the time store achieves its brand reputation, a weak brand
image needs to be handled efficiently by Slough Fashion District.
OPPORTUNITIES: The Asian community which is the key target population of the Slough
Fashion district and its proportion in the region is a potential opportunity for the store and the
store will be filling the unsatisfied needs of the customers. No huge cloth retail store is already
operating in the region and this would be an opportunity for the store.
THREATS: The new market competition may arise at any time in the market presenting as a
threat for the store and the store need to generate policies and strategies to effectively handle the
competition.

5.0 Industry Analysis

The competition in the industry could be in many forms and how Slough Fashion District is
planning to deal with each one of it has been described below. Figure 5 demonstrate the industry
competition and pressure points for any business operating in a market sector. In addition, the
industry analysis of Slough Fashion District is conducted in this report through Porters five
forces analysis (Drummond et al. 2007).

5.1 New Market Entrants

One major challenge in the garment business is the threat of the new entrants in the market. Once
such a situation arises, a momentous competitive edge could be gained over the competition by
selling the cloths and other products at Slough Fashion District on a lower price but this could
not be continued over a longer period of time as per the financial pressure fortification on the
business. Another way of handling this challenge could be the unique store operations, impact on
the consumer lifestyle and loyalty to the brand which need to be achieved through the distich
practices of Slough Fashion District.

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Retail Marketing Opening a new retail store

Figure 5: Industry Competitive Factors

5.2 Existing Market Rivalry

Slough is a region with a large population size but fewer shopping options availability and
residents need to travel to London for the quality purchases they need to make and in this
situation, Slough Fashion District would be a paradise for not only the Asian community but also
the other populations. Though no huge existing rivals are anticipated and the few stores present
would be handled by the reasonable pricing strategy of Slough Fashion District and the quality
local garments and this would be further emphasized by the environment friendly practices of the
store to attract the environmentalists and other residents who are much concerned about their
society wellbeing.

5.3 Threat of Substitute Products

As the garment industry has much less drastic effect of the alternative products availability in the
market as the product categories usually does not change for a particular age group and gender.
However the changing trends induce the need to bring about changes in the designs, styles,
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colours and material in order to be in the customer product preference list. The wide product
range available at the store will tackle this situation where different styles would be made
available in accordance to the latest fashion trends.

5.4 Powers of Suppliers and Buyers to Bargain

The retailer in this era of high market competition understand the value of the rebate that they
would receive over the larger proportion of the products they are selling and these are the only
benefit they receive at some points. Keeping this in mind, a suitable and reasonable profit on
trading has been decided by the Slough Fashion District and this profit could be decreased on
larger orders as well. While deciding the price scale and pricing strategy for this new clothing
retail store, the rebate range and the buying perception on part of the customers was kept in
mind.

6.0 Conclusion
This short report presented the marketing strategy and planning of store to be opened in Slough
area to fulfil the apparel needs of Asian community. The store will compete with its rivals on the
basis of product innovation and differentiation, customer services, and unique business
operations. The environmental analysis of clothing industry reveals no major threat/issues for the
store apart from identity unawareness. In addition, industry analysis reveals severe rivalry and
threat of new entrants for Slough Fashion District.

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References
Baker, M.J. (2003). The Marketing Book. 5th Edition, Taylor & Francis
Drummond, G., Ensor, J. and Ashford, R. (2007). Strategic marketing: planning and control. 3rd
edition, Routledge
Johnson, G., Langley, A. and Melin, L. (2007). Strategy as practice: research directions and
resources. Cambridge University Press
Ottman, J. (2011). The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for
Sustainable Branding. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
ONS (2011) Census: Ethnic group, local authorities in England and Wales. [online]. Available
from: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/census/2011/index.html [Accessed: 07 March
2013]
Perrey, J. and Spillecke, D. (2012). Retail Marketing and Branding: A Definitive Guide to
Maximizing ROI. 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons
Pride, W.M. and Ferrell, O.C. (2008). Foundations of marketing. Cengage Learning
Seybold, P. B. (2001). Get Inside the Lives of Your Customers. Harvard Business Review, 79(5),
pp. 80-89.
Sullivan, M. and Adcock, D. (2002). Retail marketing. Cengage Learning EMEA

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Appendices
Appendix A

Start-up Funding
Start-up Expenses to Fund

6,309

Start-up Assets to Fund

9,637

Total Funding Required

15,946

Assets
Non-cash Assets from Start-up

9,380

Cash Requirements from Start-up

257

Additional Cash Raised

Cash Balance on Starting Date

257

Total Assets

9,895

Liabilities and Capital

Liabilities
Current Borrowing

Long-term Liabilities

11,189

Accounts Payable (Outstanding Bills)

Other Current Liabilities (interest-free)

1,340

Total Liabilities

12,529

Capital
Planned Investment
Owners Investment - Cash

3,417

Other

Additional Investment Requirement

Total Planned Investment

Loss at Start-up (Start-up Expenses)

3,417
-6,309

Total Capital

-2,892

Total Capital and Liabilities

9,637

Total Funding

15,946

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Start-up Requirements
Start-up Expenses
Rent

1,076

Grand Opening Event

268

Telephone & Utilities (3 months)

1,055

Travel - Dallas Market Buying Trip

235

Business Insurance

402

Advertising & Promotion

677

Store Fixtures/Decorations

1,005

Computer/Cash Register

637

Signage (Including Permits)

268

Organizational Dues & Subscriptions

84

Business/Office Supplies

268

Other

335

Total Start-up Expenses

6,309

Start-up Assets
Cash Required

257

Start-up Inventory

9,380

Other Current Assets

Long-term Assets

Total Assets

9,637

Total Requirements

15,946

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Projected Profit and Loss

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

190,414

247,538

321,794

95,207

123,769

160,897

95,207

123,769

160,897

95,207

123,769

160,897

50%

50%

50%

Payroll

29,557

32,513

35,764

Sales and Marketing and Other Expenses

10,350

10,400

10,609

Telephone / Pagers/ Cell

1,206

1,206

1,230

Utilities

3,015

3,216

3,280

Payroll Taxes

2,956

3,252

3,576

Sales
Direct Cost of Sales
Other Production Expenses
Total Cost of Sales
Gross Margin
Gross Margin %
Expenses

Depreciation

Other
Total Operating Expenses

47,084

50,587

54,460

Profit Before Interest and Taxes

48,123

73,183

106,438

EBITDA

48,123

73,183

106,438

999

787

566

14,137

21,719

31,761

Net Profit

32,987

50,677

74,110

Net Profit/Sales

17.32%

20.47%

23.03%

Interest Expense
Taxes Incurred

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