INTRODUCTION

Forever 21 is an American chain of fashion retailers with its headquarters in Los Angeles and sales of $3.7 billion in 2013. Forever 21 began as a 900 square foot store in Los Angeles in 1984, and has grown to sell their clothing lines Forever 21, XXI Forever, Love 21, and Heritage in over 600 stores in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and the UK. More than 60% of its apparel is manufactured in China and the average store size is 38,000 square feet. According to Adrienne Tennant, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, and Andrea Chang of the Los Angeles Times, Forever 21 is known for its trendy offerings and its economical pricing. The company sells clothing, accessories, and beauty products for women, men, and girls. The company has been involved in various controversies, ranging from labor practice issues and copyright infraction accusations to religion.

HISTORY

Forever 21 founders Do “Don” Won Chang and his wife Jin Sook Chang emigrated from South Korea to the United States in 1981.The luxurious cars of those in the retail industry influenced Don to enter the garment industry and so Fashion 21, later renamed Forever 21, was established. Don is the Chief Executive Officer and Jin Sook the Chief Merchandising Officer, with a combined net worth of $5 billion. As of September 2013, the couple ranked 264 in Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list and 90 amongst America’s wealthiest. Their two daughters joined the business in 2009, Linda leading the Marketing department and Esther in charge of visuals.
Originally known as Fashion 21, the first Forever 21 store was founded in Los Angeles, California on April 21, 1984 by Chang and Chang. The store is located at 5637 N. Figueroa Street in the Highland Park district of Los Angeles and is still in operation, bearing the chain's original name.Designs similar to those seen in South Korea were sold and targeted to the Los Angeles Korean American community. In its first year in operation, sales totalled $700,000, and by 2013, there were more than 480 stores that brought in revenue of $3.7 billion. And as of February 2014, Forever 21 generated a revenue of $3.8 billion.

SUCCESS STORY

Fashion forward clothes that are pocket friendly make Forever 21 one of the most coveted fashion brands.
Forever 21 is an American retail chain that is #122 in Forbes biggest private companies list of USA. With headquarters in Los Angeles, California, the company has 480 branches all over the world and has notched up sales of $3.7 billion in 2013. One of America’s most preferred retailers, Forever 21 was established as Fashion 21 in 1984 by a Korean immigrant in a small 900 sq feet space. Today, malls house the fashion giant in 9,000 square feet area and their XXI flagship stores are spread over 24,000 square feet.
By economically pricing their fashion friendly designs, Forever 21 has been able at attract a steady patronage selling apparel for girls, women and men apart from venturing into accessories and beauty products.
The founder of Forever 21, Do ‘Don’ Won Chang migrated to America in 1981 from Korea. As a new immigrant Chang had to do two jobs to feed his family. He worked as a janitor and served coffee at a gas station. Chang noticed that many of the people who would come to the gas station in luxury cars were all in the retail industry. He soon decided to enter the apparel market.
Chang and his wife Jin Sook launched Forever 21 just three years after migrating to America. They initially sold clothing designs popular in Korea to the Korean-American people living in Los Angeles. The first year for Forever 21 saw $700,000 in sales.
By 2009 Chang’s two daughters Linda and Esther joined the family business in the marketing department. In 2014, the Changs family worth was Five billion dollars. They are now ranked number 86 in the List of Richest People in America and number 93 on the Forbes 400 list. Changs are also at number 244 in Forbes billionaires list. But Forever 21 success story has not been without its share of controversies. The company faced several allegations of copyright infringements against it. According to Forbes, Forever 21 had 50 copyright violation lawsuits slapped on it. Some of the most famous designers in America like Diane von Furstenberg, Anna Sui, Trovata, and Gwen Stefani have sued Forever 21. However, the firm was never found guilty and settled most of the cases out of courts. In its defense, Forever 21 maintains that it works with merchants instead of designers, and does not copy designs.
Forever 21 was also pulled up by several media houses like The Daily Mail and The Huffington Post. They alleged that the clothing firm was promoting a religious propaganda and a Christian agenda because it sold tops printed with words like “Thank God,” “Holy,” “Peace,” “Faith,” “Hope,” “Love,” and “Jesus.”
The success of Forever21 sets a great example to small apparel businesses all over the world.

MARKETING STRATEGIES

Forever 21 has made an incredible name for itself over the past few years in the fashion industry. Forever 21 is a clothing company that sells the latest styles of clothing and accessories at an affordable price. Forever 21 is always adapting to keep up with the ever changing styles in the fashion world. The atmosphere that the Forever 21 company has created has definitely reached its target audience, young men and women that love staying on the cutting edge of fashion, no matter their style, for the right price. Forever 21 has not stopped there, it is continuing to broaden its demographics by expanding its brands within its name. Since Forever 21 is a company that is founded on the principle of staying up to date and trendy, by adding to their current social media they will be able to reach an even larger group of potential customers, as well as keeping their current Forever 21 lovers updated on their latest styles.
Forever 21 has a target audience of young women and men ranging from ages 13 to 30 that are seeking to keep up with the latest styles from the runway at an incredibly reasonable price. However, even though this is the targeted audience of Forever 21, many different people from many different backgrounds and age groups choose to shop at Forever 21 simply because it offers almost anything someone needs at the lowest price for its quality. As stated previously, Forever 21 always wants to be on the cutting edge and what better way to stay on the cutting edge than to keep up with every type of social media. A goal of Forever 21’s is to expand its range of customers by offering a wider variety of styles, but for them to reach these other types of potential customers, they need to use social medias that will fulfill this goal. Along with this goal, comes with it the need to expand the notoriety of the company as well as sell more of its products. They have already implemented one strategy by using Facebook and updating the page’s status daily offering different merchandise information, along with its features and benefits.
Based on this outline of goals for Forever 21 and its social media experience it can afford to spend at least 5-8 hours daily on its endeavor. As for Forever 21’s website, it is completely optimized, harboring Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube badges on the home page. Facebook is the primary source of interaction they have with customers simply because people can comment and like Forever 21’s updates. Twitter is another way they allow users to interact, however it is not nearly as widely used at Facebook. Forever 21 also has an incredible blog on their website describing their YouTube page, but this is where Forever 21 falls short. They have very few videos posted on their page causing a great loss on their part. To improve their already innovative and exciting website there are three things that Forever 21 could do. The first is to create an optimized video blog offering merchandise information and creative ways to wear Forever 21’s apparel. The second is to create an app for shopping. Third, is to use a social bookmarking site. If they implemented this tool, loyal customers and potential customers would be able to see what styles are trending and what Forever 21 is interested in, and for those shoppers that are loyal to Forever 21, this could potentially be a huge selling point.
Not much improvement is needed for Forever 21’s current sites, what they are doing with what they have is remarkable. However, as stated earlier, there is one area where they are falling short. They could use their YouTube profile to upload videos from a video blog or video diary to assist the style challenged and feature new products they are selling online. By doing this, they could increase their sales dramatically.
The proposed social media strategy for Forever 21 is as follows:
1. Implement an optimized video blog
2. Create a mobile shopping app
3. Use a social bookmarking site
4. Add Groupons/Living Social deals
The analytics and metrics of this outline will be the effectiveness of these implemented strategies. For the video blog, the number of views each video gets within a month of its release will be a huge determinant. If there are more than 5,000 views, it would be considered a success. The success of the mobile shopping app would be determined on the number of purchases that occur throughout the first six months of its operation. Using a social bookmarking site will be the trickiest to determine success by far, but not impossible. If done properly, success can be measured by how many views the profile gets; again 5,000 within the first six months would be the determining number. Lastly, by offering a Groupon or a Living Social deal, the achievement would be over 5,000 purchased nationwide. No matter how large or small a new strategic plan is, it takes time to implement. It will take very careful planning, time, and effort; nothing will happen over night. After six months, Forever 21 can evaluate their product and strategies to determine how they have been working and if changes need to be made. It is incredibly important for a company in the ever changing fashion world to keep the trend conscious followers fed with the knowledge they crave. This is why stability and consistency with all of their social marketing techniques are crucial in Forever 21’s success.

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS –
1. It has employees base of 30,000 in different countries.
2. Offers huge variety of clothing to men, woman, teen girls.
3. Strong online presence via its official website.
4. Various formats of stores such as Forever 21+, Love 21, Contemporary and Maternity, Forever 21 Girls, Forever 21 Men.
5. Strong financials in terms of revenue and profits.
6. Converting stores to make them more attractive and convenient for customers.

WEAKNESS –
1. Limited number of stores in Latin America, Asia and Europe regions.
2. Copying the idea of other designers.
3. Known for bad working conditions.
4. Paying low wage to employees.
5. Sued on several occasions.

OPPORTUNITIES –
1. Improve customer services
2. Market penetration by opening more stores in Latin America, Asia, and Europe regions.
3. Research and development to create their own ideas rather than replicating competitors designs.
4. Market development by entering into new countries of Asia such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
5. Reduce the cost of production to lower the prices.
6. Online marketing.

THREATS –
1. Presence of strong competitors; Charlotte Russe, H&M, Wet Seal, Urban Outfitters, Guess, and Deb.
2. Security issues in certain countries.
3. Negative perception of customer due to bad publicity.