...Urban Outfitters Continuing Case Study Part 4: Marketing a Business Introduction to Business – BUS 100 November 22, 2010 Abstract Urban Outfitters is a continuing case study that describes the basic components of the marketing process (product, promotion, pricing, and distribution). This assignment gives insight into several companies marketing strategies that businesses use to excel in customer service and satisfaction with their product(s) and or services. The study specifically addressed four questions regarding counterculture image, big box stores, exclusivity and the enjoyment of shopping. The study’s hypothesis was that a business must complete an external analysis in order to determine what changes are taking place in their city, county, state, country and around the world that could potentially impact its business? Also, it’s important to find out want and how they make their final purchase decisions. A company must be able to determine their potential, weaknesses, opportunities, and competition. Explain why Sears or Wal-mart cannot effectively create a trendy counterculture image. One reason as to why Sears or Wal-mart cannot effectively create a trendy counterculture image is because it would completely go against the general norm. This image normally targets a specific group of people. Wal-mart’s main focus is to help customers save money, which will hopefully result in them living better. Before opening Wal-mart...
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...Urban Outfitters Continuing Case Study: Marketing a Business Jason A. Knight August 21st, 2011 Professor A. Garabedian 1. Explain why Sears or Wal-mart cannot effectively create a trendy counterculture image. Urban Outfitters can be credited for successfully creating a trendy counterculture image. They have been able to do this by targeting specific markets in key areas and locations, offering exclusivity, and promoting a certain lifestyle. Sears and Wal-mart have both established themselves as being highly successful and profitable business chains. However, even though these large chains have established themselves as strong contenders in the retail market Sears and Wal-mart cannot effectively create a trendy counterculture image. Sears and Wal-mart lack the ability to offer exclusivity and the ability to target specific markets. Both chains are just simply too large. Even though there are Urban Outfitters locations worldwide they still manage to offer a very specific selection of items on a small scale to accommodate the social and socioeconomic demographics of the area in which they are located. You can find a sears or Wal-mart in virtually every state in the U.S. and find the exact same broad range of products. There is really no differentiation, nothing that sets the stores apart. Literally just anyone has the ability to shop in these places and offering such a broad range of products, including groceries, clothing, and electronics attracts a wider range of people...
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...involved in starting a business are finding an idea or ideas, finance or funding, and finding committed people. Finding an idea or ideas for a new business may not be as hard as it sounds or seems. Most of the time, the idea comes from inside you. There is a deep, nagging desire to see something accomplished or provided. This focus may start with a select group of people, as it did with “Urban Outfitters”, who began by targeting college students. Finding financing or funding may prove to be a bit more challenging until you decide to do some serious research. You may find various opportunities to acquire the financing you need through investors from different business industries. There are investors searching for small businesses in which they can invest money, time, and/or resources. Finding committed people who can see your vision for your business, and commit to working hard to meet the mission and goals for the business are valuable assets. These people may be family members, friends, classmates, or someone you met and connected with soon after sharing your vision. Urban Outfitters was started by Richard and Judy Hayne, and Richard’s old college roommate, Scott Belair. Roughly a year after the first store opened, Judy and Richard divorced and went separate ways; Scott Belair graduated from school and left the enterprise for Wall Street (Steve Jobs, 2011). Finding these great people does not mean they will stay with you forever, so choose wisely. Question 2: Define...
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...FINANCIAL ANALYSIS NAME: Urban Outfitters, INC EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Urban Outfitters is a clothing store for women and men founder in 1970 by Richard Haynes. Urban Outfitters is a public trade company and have over 400 retail locations. This financial overview will show Urban Outfitters company important segments, financial statement, ratios and analyze of the company’s cash flow. Urban Outfitters two major competitors are Abercrombie and Fitch and J Crew. Urban Outfitters is able to increase their sales every year because they focus of the differential of product, brand prestige and customer loyalty. Over the past five years, Urban Outfitters has experience an increase of sales from $349 million to $1,092 which average grow of 33.43% per year. Urban has out performance their competitor’s sales by near 29% and the industry by 22%. The two main competitors for Urban, ANF has an average of sales growth of 20% and JCG has growth of sales of 5%. As an overall evaluation, URBN’s operating efficiency has increased during this time period due primarily to this: operating costs declined while gross profit increased. Asset turnover decreased slightly which indicates their asset basis generated fewer sales. However, this is minimal when compared to return on assets which increased every year. SWOT ANALYSIS: Strengths: • Email customers when it is a new merchandize • Recommend product based on what the customer has previous buy ...
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...Date: October 27, 2011 Student Name: Instruction Name: Professor James Young Course/Class: BUS100096VA016-1118-001 Assignment #1: Urban Outfitters Continuing Case Study Part 2: Creating a Business 1. Setting up a business can be a very challenging job. Having a beautiful dream thinking about the business while sitting in your nice office with all the amenities is not enough. It is great to have an idea, but you have to make that idea work. There are lots of challenges that face their owners when setting up a business. It could take years for a business to produce enough profits for the owners to be able to enjoy. Most businesses start small and in time, with experience, goodwill, and success, they can grow into bigger businesses. Here are three challenges that new business face: ➢ Idea/Concept: Many entrepreneurs face risks to create their own business because they do not have the right idea or concept. Sometime ideas and concepts are good but if customers will not buy what they are offering, the business will fail. Richard Hayne and his wife Judy along with an old college roommate, Scott Belair had a great idea. They wanted to open a small shop filled with unique objects that they could sell. The basically sold used second hand clothes, bohemian knickknacks, and “found objects”. Their customers would come for the unique “found objects” and were willing to pay what they were being sold for. Entrepreneurs- people...
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...Unlike other retailers, Urban Outfitters’ marketing nearly begins and ends with the shopping experience itself. The company does little if any advertising, in print or otherwise. Nearly everything rides on producing a unique experience. Urban Outfitters has been a consistent winner with tight marketing and storefronts that completely set it apart from other retailers. Typically a niche company finds a narrow category in the broader industry where it can outperform larger retailers. Once the consumer is singled out and approached with the right sort of attention, that consumer will respond to the brand. For Urban Outfitters, this meant understanding the psychology of a very specific group of customers and then doing something a big retailer literally could not do: be small and exclusive. But Urban Outfitters did it on a not-so-small scale and without much traditional marketing. From the beginning, Urban Outfitters used location, the shopping experience, and a certain sense of fashion to sell to people who were somewhat counterculture and certainly not looking for conformity. Originally thought of as the “hip” college crowd, the typical Urban Outfitters’ customer is looking for a sense of differentiation. By all indications, this conception was accidental; when Hayne opened his first 400 sq. ft. store, he probably had no illusions of “chipping away” at JC Penney’s or Sears’ market share. All the same, Hayne essentially invented a category, and discovered that his customers...
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...TIMEPLAN AND RESOURCES 7 9. CONCLUSION 7 10. BIBLIOGRAPHY 8 1. INTRODUCTION One would like to take this opportunity to thank the company “Urban Outfitters Inc.” for inviting me to conduct this innovation audit. It is with great pleasure and intrigue that one immerses oneself in the innovative aspects of your company and seek ways to improve the overall success of your establishment. The audit will be conducted over an extended period, as yet to be outlined. In order to establish a thorough audit one will conduct assessments and surveys in most of the company’s UK, Ireland, European stores and the head office headquarters in Oxford Street. Before one begins it must be outlined why one believes that this innovation audit will significantly improve the prosperity of this company: Innovation has become one of the key business progressions to deliver sustainable competitive advantage. It is a complex process, one easily identified as being of critical eminence for organisational success yet not easily controlled. The successful management of innovation delivers value to end users, meeting business and organisational objectives and visions. Innovation is the lifeblood of any business. It prevents a business from stagnation by giving its products or services a competitive edge. 2. DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPANY History Urban Outfitters was established in 1970 in a Philadelphia row house a few blocks from the University of Pennsylvania campus. Originally called “Free People”...
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...Unlike other retailers, Urban Outfitters’ marketing nearly begins and ends with the shopping experience itself. The company does little if any advertising, in print or otherwise. Nearly everything rides on producing a unique experience. Urban Outfitters has been a consistent winner with tight marketing and storefronts that completely set it apart from other retailers. Typically a niche company finds a narrow category in the broader industry where it can outperform larger retailers. Once the consumer is singled out and approached with the right sort of attention, that consumer will respond to the brand. For Urban Outfitters, this meant understanding the psychology of a very specific group of customers and then doing something a big retailer literally could not do: be small and exclusive. But Urban Outfitters did it on a not-so-small scale and without much traditional marketing. From the beginning, Urban Outfitters used location, the shopping experience, and a certain sense of fashion to sell to people who were somewhat counterculture and certainly not looking for conformity. Originally thought of as the “hip” college crowd, the typical Urban Outfitters’ customer is looking for a sense of differentiation. By all indications, this conception was accidental; when Hayne opened his first 400 sq. ft. store, he probably had no illusions of “chipping away” at JC Penney’s or Sears’ market share. All the same, Hayne essentially invented a category, and discovered that his customers...
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...Urban Outfitters mobile advertising campaign Brand I would like to build a one-month mobile advertising campaign for is young clothing brand – Urban Outfitters (UO). The brand is now famous for its music relations – their Vynil records sales are a major part of UO’s inventory. It already has the mobile app that works as an in-app online shop, it also collects a lot of data about the users, though, many users still prefer to use the original website for online shopping. Urban Outfitters doesn’t just sell the outfits, it also sells life-style: the beauty of being young, hipster-ish, stylish freedom. And this things are directly correlated to music tastes. I would suggest to buld in the app the music player, that will suggest different outfits on the basis of the music people like, as well as suggest music on the basis of the clothes people choose. Partnering with the streaming services – I would choose Deezer, since it is new to American market and also needs advertising partners. UO also can launch a commercial campaign on Deezer in the way of pre-roll audio that shows the method of clothing-music binding and gives the viewer download app immediately. I would also add audio insert message advertising UO in Spotify app when user chooses particular playlists (like Indie music, all mood-based playlists, etc.). I wouls also try programmatic ad-buying platform for the UO, since it is good at identifying target audience. And UO fans are really particular audience that is easyly identified...
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...Case Study - Slavery in Chocolate 1. What are the systemic, corporate, and individual ethical issues raised by this case? • Local and Global Laws are not enforced due to lack of resources or the desire to enforce the laws. • The number of farmers (1M) and the system makes it difficult to identify the source of the cocoa beans harvested using slavery. • Global decline in cocoa bean prices drove farmers to use slavery to lower labor cost. • Corporations are unable or unwilling to take action to improve the situation in harvesting the cocoa bean. • The fundamental demands of shareholder profits drives corporation to turn a blind eye to how cocoa is harvested. • Chocolate Consumers are kept so far removed from the Cocoa source that they are unaware or choose to be ignorant of the cost involved to create chocolate. 2) In your view is the kind of child slavery discussed in this case absolutely wrong no matter what or is it only relatively wrong i.e. if one happens to live in a society like ours that disapproves of Slavery. I believe that Slavery is wrong. Kidnapping is wrong. Forced labor for children is wrong. I would like to believe Slavery is absolutely wrong but this is coming from a Western perspective where we hold personal freedom as a right. We also don’t see the populations of poverty that some third world countries face. In countries where there is a high infant/child death rate due to poverty, and starvation, living as a slave could be seen as a preferable...
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...TermPaperWarehouse.com - Free Term Papers, Essays and Research Documents The Research Paper Factory * Join * Search * Browse * Saved Papers ------------------------------------------------- Haut du formulaire Bas du formulaire ------------------------------------------------- Haut du formulaire Bas du formulaire * Home Page » * Business and Management Case Study: Chase’s Strategy for Syndicating the Hong Kong Disneyland Loan (a) In: Business and Management Case Study: Chase’s Strategy for Syndicating the Hong Kong Disneyland Loan (a) Case Study: Chase’s Strategy for Syndicating the Hong Kong Disneyland Loan (A) Q1. How should Chase have bid in the first round competition to lead the HK$3.3 billion Disneyland financing? 1.Three ways to approach this deal 1) bid to win, 2) bid to lose and3) no bid. Chase chose to bid to lose on the first round, but just enough to make it to the short list. Also, since Chase is one of Disney's relationship banks, Chase would not want to ruin this relationship by not bidding on their project. If Chase wanted to lead the competition from the first round, they should have made a bid that was more aggressive and aimed to win. This bid would have been closer to the desires of Disney, making them more appealing and increasing their probabilities of leading the financing. However, they chose to bid to lose, with just enough terms to get into the second round to "protect their reputation", but not...
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...In the past the repartition was clear; women were in charge of buying personal care produces, fragrances, women clothing, and groceries. Men were just interested in stereo equipment, video games, tires, and men’s clothing. Now the things have changed, the retail environment has changed these behaviors. In this review we will try to explain this phenomenon changes in consumption pattern. At first we will explain the changes of men’s consumption patterns, in a second time we will talk about the changes of consumption habits in women, in a third part we will see how these changes influenced retailers, and finally we will conclude. With the modernization, and the development of new technologies, we can see a change in men’s consumption behaviors. Indeed the gender stereotypes have faded; cosmetics are no longer reserved to women, the choice of the car is no longer reserved to men…With the growth of challengers, the increase of e-commerce, retailers couldn’t sell their goods like in the past with one product for everyone without take into account Culture, gender, age... and they have to developed new strategies like retail market segments, business intelligent tools to respond to these changes. Nowadays “more and more men are in the market for grooming and personal care products”. “Men’s grooming represents a $35 billion global industry in America” (source: FIT NYC). Indeed the attitudes and mindset of the American male have evolved. “Today three out of four men agree that men...
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...Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an international investment whereby a firm in one economy has control or major influence over the management of another firm in another economy (Xu, 2014). For many years, China has grown to be one of the most attractive countries for foreign direct investments of almost every present organization in the world.. Despite the rise in labour costs and shortages of skilled labour along with greater competition faced by foreign firms in the China market since 2008, China has still succeeded in continuously attracting more FDI as compared to other developing countries. This essay while relating to certain FDI theories (Eclectic theory) will further discuss the general factors that has led to the increase of FDI in China despite many challenges over the years as well as using a firm such as Gap Inc. as a case example to show the main specific factors which influenced the company to undergo FDI in China. As China's population nears 1.4 billion people (Xinhua, 2010), there are many general 'pull' factors contributing towards the increase of FDI in China. One of the factors would be country's market size as accordance to Cheng & Kwan (2000) whom agreed that market size does attract FDI in China. China's large market size potentially creates huge domestic demand that provides greater opportunity for foreign firms to undergo FDI as firms access into a larger customer base would be made easier, allowing them to increase their productivity and profit...
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...Stock Market Report The first step to building my portfolio was defining my objectives. What exactly did I want to achieve by participating in this game? Keeping in mind that many financial analysts fail to beat the S&P 500, I realized that my chances of beating the market were slim. If “professionals” have difficulty choosing the right stocks, then chances are I will to. In short, I decided that taking a gamble and investing in risky stocks to win the game was probably a futile strategy. The technical reason for why I, or any other person for that matter, cannot beat the markets is that markets are mostly efficient. Much of what I know about a company is probably public information so it is already reflected in that company’s stock price. For example, many people view Apple as a company with much potential for growth. As a result, the demand for its stock is already very great; so great that some say the demand for the company can’t go any higher. If I were to buy Apple, I must find a reason for why the public is undervaluing it; simply saying the iPhone is selling off the charts won’t work since everyone already knows that. With this in mind, I focused on buying stocks that I was familiar with and could at least make a reasonable case as to why they were undervalued. I decided to settle on buying a group of stocks and keeping them until the end of the game. In fact, since I was investing for the long term, I pushed myself to rarely look at my holdings in order to limit...
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...competing units among the marching bands. They joined military parades, concerts, street parades and many more. It means that joining in marching bands had a lot of trainings and practices to be done. In this regards the academic performance of the band members maybe sacrifice because of double priorities. In addition, the society may have different expectations of the performance of the band members according to their own perspectives. It was observed that there are band members who had incomplete or failing grades. It all depends on how they personally addressed problems as a student and as a band members who got failing grades and incomplete grades faced a consequence of termination as a band scholar. http://www.termpaperwarehouse.com/essay-on/Problems-Encountered-By-Irregular-College-Students/134394 Factors Affecting the Academic Performance of the Third Year Education Students in Saint Joseph College of Canlaon Introduction The extent of student’s learning in academics may be determined by the grades a student earns for a period of learning has been done. It is believed that a grade is a primary indicator of such learning. If a learner earns high grades it is concluded that they may also...
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