Specifications and Preferences of the Luxury Commodities Market
What drives their like for Burberry Products?
Introduction
Burberry Group PLC is an international renowned fashion brand. This company dates back to 1856 in Basingstoke city, England. Its global headquarter is in London, with branches spread in various parts of the world. Hong Kong, China, South America, United States of America, and Middle East are some of the branches that this company has around the globe.
Like most UK companies, Burberry Group was characterized by early international operations in minimal scales. This resulted to a relatively early development of multiple retail operations in the domestic market while its outside engagement remained controlled. Such conditions made the Burberry brand extremely popular locally with little progress being made on the global sphere. This explains why the company did not have a strong outside market despite being popular in the domestic sphere (Moore and Grete 411).
Background information
Since early 2000, most foreigners did not rate Burberry products as among the top deluxe brands. This is showdown was attributed to a bad public image that had rocked the company. The company brand had been associated to a group of white working-class crooks who were associated with lawlessness, impunity, and hooliganism.
People developed a phobia for the company's brands. Some organizations took extreme measures such as dismissing young people who donned clothes with this brand. These discrimination and propagandist claims led to a turn down in the status of the label and brands from this company (Moore and Grete 418).
Consequently, its market share declined while the profits made were negligible. This situation persisted until Angela Ahrendts took over as the head of the company. She brought in a lot of change that helped revamp this company into one of the most productive fashion house in the world. Under the new leadership, the company started a steady growth and since then, it has continued in that upward trend (Moore and Grete 412-420).
The main focus of this research paper is to establish why the brands from Burberry Group PLC are more popular in the market compared to other products from other brands. There are various factors that have seen this company grow to this level. Responding to the market need, available market and good specifications are among the factors that have seen this company grow (Vollmer and Karen 36).
The Burberry Group has a rich and talented human resource. This group of brilliant individuals works tirelessly to ensure its designs are chic, yet contemporary. Burberry has had to use several methods to reimaging. This includes the creation of exclusive and effective fashion shows that suit new international market trends. This has helped to create market for the brand. Unlike other companies who remain indoors, this company has created a big name and taken information to the people through such events.
In order to remain competitive, the label has had to concentrate on popularizing the brand in the international market. Therefore, it is imperative to go for the most suitable and efficient locations for retailing such luxurious products as Burberry products. Given the benefits that come with globalization, the company is properly set to compete in the global arena (Rohwedder and Johnson 27).
Fashion companies have found it hard to venture into the crowded international market. This is due to the cut-throat competition posed by influential brands such as Banana Republic, and Gucci to mention just but a few. However, this company has attempted and succeeded in this global venture (Vollmer and Karen 6).
Alexander and Hayley (91-94) note that the European and North America markets were the most popular markets between 1960 and 1990 for most brands, including Burberry. However, these markets have become heavily populated forcing retailers to look for market elsewhere. The last two decades have seen the East Asia market become very popular for international marketing (Vollmer and Karen 16).
European and the United States retailers are flocking the region in search of greener pastures. The East Asian market is particularly attractive to international retailers because of the rapid social change and economic growth the region has been experiencing since the early 1990s. The East Asia market was underdeveloped in terms of retail structures but promised economic sustainability for investment in retail (Rohwedder and Johnson 20).
Such markets have created conducive environment for this company. Thus, it has been able to enlarge and augment sales to an all-time high. Given the volatility in the Middle East, it has been imprudent for many companies to invest. However, The Burberry Group has taken it upon itself to go where her competitors have dared not put their money. This has gained fame, profit and huge revenue for the company (Vollmer and Karen 8).
The East Asian Market has a total population of about 3.4 billion people, with China accounting for more than 1.2 billion people. The GDP of the region has been on a constant rise with an average of 8 % growth, and a rapidly growing middle class that has expanded the per capita income levels hence consumer demands for retail commodities.
Suggestions are that free market conditions like those in China and Hong Kong shall develop three elementary structural evolutions. First, the retail market becomes progressively more concentrated. Not only do the organizations themselves multiply in size in terms of quantity of stores, but also the definite size of each store multiplies (Alexander and Hayley, 67).
Second, as the size of retail organizations urges up, so does their influence within the network of circulation. In less progressive business environments, producers, and to a lesser degree suppliers, dominate the supply network. Third, the description of the retail store ownership varies from small enterprises to large and corporate structures (Alexander and Hayley, p. 99).
Burberry has a substantial market presence in China and Hong Kong with 57 stores distributed in the region. The region is a major market for luxury goods and with Burberry recording an increased financial turnover, with most of the turnover being from increased sales in China (Alexander and Hayley 99-101).
However, despite its seemingly rejuvenated strength in the east, Burberry is not a large retail operator in China. This is in terms of size as compared to other luxury commodities like Laura Ashley who have a wider customer segment. The failure of Burberry to capture the huge market in China is a big blow to its accumulated logistics. The company has failed to do what other giant European consumer manufacturers have done in Hong Kong. This is marked as a failure and reduces the companies' marketability. (Alexander and Hayley,23)
Burberry has since 1997 established its presence in the Middle East through several ways. Currently, there are eight stores under joint venture agreement with local companies and four stores are still in the development phase. Recent reports indicate there is a 40% increase in the sales of the brand's commodities due to the joint venture(Rohwedder and Johnson 35). This explains the upward growth of Burberry in the Middle East. Unlike companies which are still speculating, this company has gambled with the oriental and are currently reaping a huge return.
More to the expanded growth of this company is her presence in South and Central America. Burberry has 10 stores spread in different parts of the regions with plans to open more. In North America, specifically in the US, Burberry is still trying to establish its presence, especially after the recent slump of luxurious commodities in the region (Rohwedder and Johnson 20).
These regions have well established luxurious commodity markets. To appease this market, Burberry offers better prices and easily accessible commodities in order to tilt the competition in the regions to its advantage. This places the company on a safer ground while attracting more people who go for quality and are also economical. Various companies have remained undeveloped owing to high and discouraging prices. Burberry is hence more akin to persons from all circles and levels in the society (Rohwedder and Johnson 20).
The Middle East, South and Central, opening its doors for Burberry does not mean that the whole world has embraced the products whole heartedly. There are millions of other populace around the globe yet to experience the Burberry charm. The success of the product cannot be undermined yet still it cannot be exaggerated. There needs to be an admission from the marketers of Burberry that there have been challenges in breaking through the Eastern and also African market. (Rohwedder and Johnson 24).
Although social media creates a range of opportunities for many companies to explore, various companies are reluctant to exploit this opportunity. However, Burberry is one of the various success stories of social media marketing. This company has used social media to distribute its content and information to its market. As of February 2012, the label had 10.7 million fans on Facebook, 11 million unique video views and 30,000 subscribers on YouTube, and 773,000 Twitter followers (Vollmer and Karen 7).
By influencing the range and engagement of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, Burberry has successfully reinvented its fashion performances. The subject-rich social experience that now engrosses millions of fans and interested customers, rather than the conventional few insiders. This new online market population involves all types of customers whose preferences for the Burberry brand reflect the general trend in different parts of the globe (Rohwedder and Johnson 28).
Unlike other companies, Burberry has reshaped the ways of launching new products via social media. For instance, in 2011 Burberry launched its Body fragrance over Facebook. The company invited its fans to a 'fans-first' sampling promotion that generated more than 225,000 requests in the first week alone. The same was done on YouTube. The success of the social debut brought the digital world to purchase its commodities.
Even though, Burberry has been successful in social media, they have left a lot of things to be desired. The digital population likes the Burberry label because of the deliberate building of unique capabilities around community administration, subject development, and instantaneous analytics that enable the brand to develop strong, straightforward, and multiplatform networks with customers who want to associate with the brand. The use of social media is not enough publicity for the company. There needs to be more marketing done, and most importantly, the customers have to be assured of the authenticity of the products being advertised (Vollmer and Karen 7).
In terms of customer preferences, Burberry has been largely successful due to its ability to speedily put in place innovative and unique sets of capabilities. These capabilities have assisted to sustain the digitalization of its labels and the customer experience around it. Burberry now has a Facebook fan base that is greater than that of all the major U.S. fashion magazines combined.
Burberry has been successful in social media because it rapidly put in place a new and distinctive set of capabilities to support the digitization of its brand and the consumer experience around it (Vollmer and Karen 7). Most companies do not do such market this clearly gives Burberry a competitive edge in the market.
However, there is a lot of cut-throat competition that emanates from other manufacturers. What Burberry needs is not to lie low in the comfort that it is the giant marketer in social media. The internet is a surprisingly unreliable instrument. One may think that they have a million fans while realistically only two hundred thousand even look at your postings.
Burberry does not have the necessary evidence to show that they are the leading internet marketers. What the company needs to question is whether the internet numbers are reflected in the customer turn-out. Although there has been growth in the company sales, more can be experienced if this online market is exploited to the maximum. This includes having an online stream whenever the company is launching new products. This will help those people from war and wide to be part of the audience. Such will also attract the dynamic online market (Vollmer and Karen 7).
In conclusion, the Burberry experience of radical transformation has helped revamp a brand that was down surging due to bad publicity, thanks to the 'chavs.' The early 2000s saw Burberry's popularity decline but, after the appointment of Angela Ahrendts as the CEO in 2006, the company has designed an aggressive plan to turn the company around.
Other than the globalization drive that has seen the company open more branches and stores in different parts of the globe, the digital marketing innovation has been a fundamental focus for the transformation. This offers Burberry exceptional opportunities to develop its brand and market its commodities directly across networks, programs, and avenues. (Rohwedder and Johnson 42).
Burberry's social media and digital marketing activities now represent 60 percent of its marketing budget. The digital drive and globalization efforts have led to increase in revenues. The company announced a 21 percent rise in revenue in the third quarter of 2011. This was a 7% increase compared to the total revenue in the same period in 2010 (Burberry Group Annual Report).
The brand's solid financial and popularity performance is an attribute of the brand's willingness make sound investments in innovative designs and retail strategies that appeal to the specifications and preferences of the luxury commodities customers, and the digital marketing enterprise.
