Marketing Mix of Topshop (Essay Sample)

Marketing Mix of Topshop
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Introduction
Topshop is a global business that involves itself in marketing of clothing and other fashionable products. Its brand of clothing includes fashion clothes for young women, shoes, accessories among others. Its worldwide stores are more than 309. Of these 50 are in UK, about 25 in America and others in China. Topshop derives its strength from the fact that it has established its market in the clothing industry. Topshop has held the niche in the market due to its awareness in the trends in the fashion industry today. This paper will focus on the market analysis of Topshop stores in America.
In addition, the industry has understood better the value equation model. Although it is not easy to develop customer value models, the experiences Topshop has had makes it use the successful guidelines in measuring the value for its customers. Value is used in business to refer to the worth in terms of monetary in aspects such as technical, service, economic, and social benefits a company receives from the customer in exchange of the price it willingly pays for a market offering. In simple terms, it is what customers get in exchange of the amount of money or price it pays. For a customer to be willing to purchase a product, it must be guaranteed of services or quality equivalent to the price. Topshop produces goods of high quality which fetch high market demand. The customer thus sees the value for his or her money. The management of Topshop keeps looks after customer data more than anything else. Topshop obtains customers personal data but offers back value through vouchers, discounts, and special evenings for store card holders. A client’s data is worth about 10% of the discount.
Retail communications
The purpose of promotion is essential in business as it serves to inform the customers regarding a business and its products (Senker 2011). It is essential in that it shows the benefits as well as a unique selling point of products with the aim of persuading as many customers as possible into buying the product. Promotion targets on the strong features concerning the product. Customers will tend to purchase a product they have heard of than that which is new to their eyes and ears. Topshop makes use of a variety of methods to be able to reach a broad customer base. It believes in creativity input being the key to staying fresh. Topshop sets high goals for itself in addition to staying innovative as well as gaining genuine endorsements from customers as well as driving the editorial within the press (Esty & Winston, 2012). It also works with creative and credible teams thus focusing its marketing strategy on very bold campaigns meant for advertising. A well-known example of this is the Vogue Catwalk Guide. Topshop’s marketing mix generally consists of being consistently innovative, authoritative advertising, gaining reputation even from a word of mouth and sponsoring young people who have talents. It has carefully selected sponsorship and promotional strategies being one of the biggest and proclaimed supporters of young talents. This not only serves to help the youngsters become better and responsible citizens but also to add authenticity and credibility in the face of the consumers.
To top up this, Topshop is the biggest fashion producer that supports American Fashion Week. This is very crucial for its face since Topshop’s stores in USA use the same brand name and therefore, customers are able to recognize the brands from a distance. The concern here is that of Topshop in America. This is due to their authenticity. It is also the face behind the career program, “fashion royalty” which has been won by famous people such as Antonio Berardi, Matthew William, Alexander McQueen, and Clements Riberio among such dignitaries.
Topshop also uses another strategy in promoting its products known as celebrity endorsement. Selected celebrities are given the task of endorsing Topshop’s products to reflect its image and this has helped it to become a high seller in the streets. Designers also have been used to endorse Topshop’s products. This has increased its sales for records show that it sells an average of 3 pairs of knickers every minute. It also sells more than 6000 pairs of jeans within a day. In addition, Topshop sells 40000 vests every week. This has made it the biggest sponsor of young fashion designing in the industry.
Sustainable competitive advantage
Despite intense competition from other companies in the fashion industry, Topshop show has the upper hand due to its well-choreographed promotional strategies. So as to maintain a high number of customers, Topshop has developed a site for those retail outlets in the United States of America. Each of these databases has more than 120,000 people and an average of 180,000 new users every week. This has been a strong pillar in doubling their sales year after year. This defeats other competitors who do not have such sites and depend on the physical contact with the customer. In addition, Topshop use high-end methods to stay atop the fashion industry (Porter 2011). It has created different lines like Petite and Tall which have been a great booster to their sales. The use of celebrity endorsements persuades many people into buying the products due to their love of the endorsing celebrity. Topshop organizes catwalks as a way of promoting their goods and nurturing talents something that is not done by other companies. This is what makes Topshop a destination for many.


Image of the Catwalk Show organized by Topshop
Store layout, design and visual merchandise
Topshop’s store layout is constantly updated in Google and other social media platforms. The purpose of this is as much of exposure as possible and to also lure customers into getting the best of their products through visiting these sites. Topshop social channels show off the elegant store and displays which are attractive to the customers. For instance Topshop has many of its images in Google showing the arrangement of different merchandise and their various locations. There is an explanation on how one can purchase any product. The item price is also indicated in the images as a show of trustworthiness and authenticity. There are also videos and blog posts aimed at promoting Topshop’s various fashion shows. There are photos on the catwalk as well as those of endorsing celebrities and all using the hashtag #TopshopUnique. Proper and timely use of the social media is one of the easiest ways to reach a wide customer base due to its increased usage. In fact, this is very timely since most of the social media users are the middle aged who are between the ages of 16-35. This population forms of more than 78% of the active population using the social media. Topshop, being a producer of products for this age bracket reaps big from staying active in the social media and getting involved actively. One of the most recognized activities is when the retailer created a ‘social catwalk’ on Instagram and Facebook. Even before the outfits had appeared in the social media sites, a notable model Hailey Baldwin had debuted three of the outfits. This got great responses from the customers. Topshop also partnered with Google to thrill fans at different events. Billboards were erected that showed the two giants together and inviting people for a catwalk show. This was one of the greatest opportunities for Topshop since Google is a renowned organization and its image helped put the retailer at a high strut. This did not only serve to entertain the people but also to bring a wonderful experience of fashion to the fans and to connect with as many as possible. Chains of the retailer created a unique camera named Model Cam that was to be worn by some selected models at the show. This was streamed on YouTube and the look was elegant. Such videos ran through YouTube attracting a large viewership. Fans responding to the organization from Google to YouTube hailed the retailer for engaging such a high level of novelty. And to its expectations, almost 92% of the responses came from the age bracket of 16-35, Topshop’s target audience (Thompson, et al. 2015). This did not only serve as a livened interaction process but also familiarized the customer on various products offered by Topshop.
Sustainable competitive advantage
Topshop faces stiff competition from other retailers such as but ensures that it deals with the accordingly. It has some stores, Chicago Store which opens on all the days of the week. This means that customers can stream in any time and place their orders. This is a strategy that Topshop uses to put down its competitors who whose stores remain open on week days and remain closed on weekends. Many people are either employees or a few employers and can therefore get ample time to do their shopping on weekends. Topshop therefore captures these customers and serves them appropriately. All the people free on weekends stream to Topshop stores for purchases. Those who have enough time over the evening also get access to the retailer because the stores usually open till evening. Topshop, therefore, serves to fulfil the needs of all the clients unlike most of their competitors whose shops remain closed on weekends and in the evenings. This is one of the strategies that is used to keep competitors at bay.
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Images of Chicago Store and NewYork Flagship Store
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