Marketing plan for Blue Bottle coffee in South Korea

Currently, Uniqlo produces Kurtas in its product portfolio. Kurta is a traditional and famous dress worn by Indian women daily. Since most parts of the country have a hot and humid climate, adding AIRism technology can provide the unmet needs of Indian consumers. AIRism technology circulates air inside cloths, cool the body, dry sweat quickly, and has antimicrobial and deodorant properties. Besides, due to the production of cutting-edge fabrics, the company can increase new Kurta quality, durability, and functionality.

In Kurtism, Uniqlo can use high-quality material such as Cotton hosiery, linen, and georgette alongside with AIRism Fibers. Beside, for colling ability, ultrafine fibers will use to circulate tarped air inside the Kurtis. Also, cupro fibers from Asahi Kasei company and micro nylon from Toray will be used to trap body moisture. For eliminating sweat body smell, Kurtism will equip with odor control function (Fast Retailing, 2013).

The Indian Kurta can be long or short, but in both cases, the upper part of the garment is in direct contact with the body, and the lower part is placed on the pants. In this way, the Kurtism can be designed and produced with diffrent fabrics. At the top of the garment, use innovative materials equipped with AIRism technology, and at the bottom, use qualified cotton textiles. This feature keeps the upper body fresh, dry, and fragrant so that it can satisfy the customer in hot and humid conditions. Therefore, Uniqlo will design and manufacture the Kurtism in India for the first time, because competitors only produce Kurta in Indian or western style. As a result, the Kurtism is a differentiated product from the others, which, along with the reasonable price, can easily attract Indian women and increase market share. (Exhibit 6 in the appendix shows the preferred Kurtism design.)

For Uniqlo, the brand value plays a vital role in customer interpretation of its product and increasing their awareness. In other words, Uniqlo has been able to introduce itself in different countries as a company that produces creative, stylish, and high-quality clothing at reasonable prices. Therefore, the company requires to create the mentioned images in the Indian customers’ mind. In terms of brand name, new Kurta can introduce as Kurtism, which is the abbreviation of Kurta and AIRism. For labels, Uniqlo can apply a tagline to highlight the features of the new product. It can be ‘’ Comfort in Heat and Humidity with Kurtism Breathable Fabric’’.

In terms of the package, Indian women wear long and short Kurta with leggings, jeans, and skirts. Currently, these bottoms are also in the Uniqlo product portfolio. Therefore, the design of the Kurtism and pants should be compatible with each other so that it can convince the customer to buy them as a set.

In terms of design, behavioral patterns of our target market (women 30-45 years old) show that they are looking for attractive and functional Kurta than the simple model. Thus, the company requires to focus on beauty, color combinations, and appearance with the western trend (Snehal, 2019) in Kurtism. Uniqlo's supply chain enables it to produce high-quality, creative, and stylish wears, combined with a reasonable price. This chain includes product planning, cotton production, raw materials, fabric manufacturing, cloth production, logistics, sales, reuse, and recycle (Uniqlo, n.d). Besides, Kurtism will be environmentally friendly and can satisfy eco-friendly Indian customers.

The price objective is market share as the Uniqlo market share in India apparel market is less than 0.2 %. According to Statista (2018), the domestic apparel market in India value was over 95 billion CAD is 2018. Relatedly, the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) in India apparel market is reported by 13-14% (Wazir advisor, 2018); therefore, the domestic market size in 2019, when Uniqlo opened the first store in November was over 105 billion CAD. In addition, the gathered information illustrated that Uniqlo earned CAD 390,000 in the first two days of opening the first store in India (Bailay, 2019). It is presumed that the Uniqlo volume of sales experience the same average during the year so that the Uniqlo annual sales will be around 70 Million CAD for one store and 200 Million Cad for three stores. Therefore the market share of Uniqlo in India apparel market will be less than 0.2 percent. As a result, the main purpose of Uniqlo must be to increase its market share in the Indian apparel market.

Demand:

Statista (2018) reports that women apparel market in 12 different categories. Kurtas belong ethnic category with a market size of above 7.8 Billion CAD, which means one-third of the total women apparel market. Furthermore, Kurta family clothes cover almost 38% of women's ethnic apparel in India. This shows a significant demand for Kurta, which is above 120,000,000 ~ 180.000.000 (considering CAD 28 as the average price for a Kurta) in a year. The demand, as mentioned above, is just an estimation to show substantial demand, which encourages us to invest in this high potential market.

Elasticity:

There is severe competition in Kurtis women market in India, which results in high elasticity. This is attributed to the existence of eight main Kurtis manufacturers that give many substitutions to customers while purchasing.

Cost:

Uniqlo is a price-competitive brand compared to other international brands such as Zara and H&M; one of the main reasons associated with reasonable price is producing apparel in China factories. Relatedly, Uniqlo has a close relation with materials manufacturers to improve the material while keeping it at the lowest possible cost. Uniqlo reports that total cost, including variable and fixed costs in around 50% of revenue. Besides, the international department reports that the Sales and administration cost is around 35% of revenue; therefore, the profit margin for Uniqlo business is almost 15% (Fast Retailing, 2020)

Pricing Environment:

According to the Indian Trade Portal (2020)

Custom duty:

The custom duty to import Kurta is 25% or CAD 2.4 per pcs, whichever is higher.

GST:

The percentage for GST is determined based on the value of imported Kurta. For the Kurta with a value of less than CAD 17.75, GST is 5%, and the one more than CAD 17.75 GST is 12%.

Competitive

The high demand for Kurta had encouraged many manufacturers to establish their business in the Kurta market. In specific six local brands play a significant role in this market. There are listed hereunder.

Biba is at the top of this list in market share because of its unique design with various colors that leads to extreme popularity. Biba is an ethnic brand, and they offer online shopping to customers.

Price: Starts from CAD 16 to CAD 70.

Fabindia's various collection of Kurtas leads to falling in love with Indian ethnics. They produce in cotton plain, silk, short and long Kurta. Fabindia designs Kurta considering the traditional concept of Indians. Fabindia is the most expensive one of these six brands.

Price: Starts from CAD 25 to CAD 170.

Aurelia offers a unique design to customers, which makes its products very stylish so that they can be worn with pants and long skirts.

Price: Starts from CAD 17.5 to CAD 45.

Global Desi Brand offer normal size as well as extra sizes that awards a high degree of satisfaction to this brand.

Price: Starts from CAD 12.5 to CAD 60.

Libas is a reasonable price brand that offers simple Kurtas. Libas simple straight kurtas could be used even in the office or even a date.

Price: Starts from CAD 12 to CAD 28.

Rangmanch is an elegant traditional cloth. Rangmanch Kurtas are suitable for parties and casual events. It is the most reasonable collections produce by Rangmanch. The multicolored Kurtas, designed by this brand, gives a great degree of unfitness to this brand.

Price: Starts from CAD 11.5 to CAD 42.

Expanding the market share while there is severe competition in the Kurtas market is not easily achievable. Therefore, it is assumed that Uniqlo must ignore making a profit in the first stage and use a penetration pricing strategy for its new product that enables them to accelerate moving toward their objective. This is an appropriate strategy to introduce to the market and capture market share swiftly (Shaw, 2012).

In compliance with the main objectives of this market, we aim to offer the most reasonable price to our customers so that we use Freight absorption pricing tactics that enable us to provide a high-quality Kurta with the least possible price.

Uniqlo is an international brand that has a great reputation among international customers. Besides, we aim to reduce the cost as much as possible to increase the possibility of developing a market share. Therefore, we are going to offer our Kurta from CAD 16 to 45. This range meets the purchasing power of the majority of the target market.

Mumbai is known for its textile industry and logistics. Most of the Indian billionaires live in Mumbai. Also, it is known for Bollywood because all of the Bollywood stars live there whose influences over the Indian population is significantly high. Mumbai is a very diverse city because it welcomes all religions, ethnicity, and cultures. Mumbai experiences different seasons throughout a year and is located near the sea. Besides, for market penetration in India, there are two options for direct distribution channels of Uniqlo's brand expansion in India to reach the target audience of Mumbai. The first option is to open Uniqlo's traditional outlet in shopping malls of Mumbai, and the second preference is to launch Uniqlo's e-commerce channel. Uniqlo uses the SPA business modal, which unifies design, production, and sales by eliminating the role of middlemen. This business modal helps Uniqlo's control over quality. Uniqlo never compromises with its quality, so with the help of the SPA modal, its well-trained TAKUMI team closely monitors the production to meet the changing demands of its customers.

Indian shoppers considered the shopping malls as the multi-purpose leisure-time destination (Majumdar, 2010). They love to spend their quality time in Shopping malls with their friends or families because they can buy clothes, watch movies and do some recreational activities at the same place. Most of the Indian women give preferences to visit a one-stop store for their shopping because shopping malls provide almost everything under the same roof. Shopping mall has several advantages in terms of enticing the target audience as following:

· Shopping malls include food courts like MacDonald's, Subways, and Starbucks.

· It includes multiplex cinema halls to release the latest movies.

· It includes a spacious parking lot.

· It includes domestic and non-domestic retail shops for apparel and jewelry.

· The ambiance and infrastructure of shopping malls play a vital role in enticing the audience to visit the mall and make a purchase decision.

Mumbai has two hundred forty-eight malls in total. However, there are some shopping malls such as the Phoenix Market City, Infiniti, Oberoi mall, Phoenix High Street, and Inorbit mall, which are the most popular for international brands like Zara, H&M, Forever 21 in Mumbai. In Mumbai, Uniqlo can open a store in Phoenix Market City Mall at the beginning because this shopping mall fulfil all the requirements of Uniqlo’s large-store format.

Phoenix Market City mall in Mumbai for Uniqlo's market penetration will be the best option for the brand-conscious shoppers in Mumbai. This mall has a four-story building that houses many international brands such as Zara, H&M, Sephora, and domestic brands such as Biba. It is almost similar to the first Uniqlo's flagship store opened in the Ambience mall of Delhi, which has a three-story store of Uniqlo. Phoenix Market City mall was established in 2011.

Location. It is located at the heart of Mumbai.

Size. It is one of the largest malls in India. It covered 1,140,000 square feet (106,000 m2) area in Mumbai.

Competitors. This mall is a house of well-recognized international brands such as Zara, H&M, and Forever 21. According to the annual report of Phoenix Mills (2017), Zara, H&M, and Forever 21 occupy 36,000, 37,000, and 18,000 square feet, respectively, in this mall. The stores of each brand are very spacious and well organized.

Ambiance. Apart from the apparel retail stores in Phoenix Market City Mall, some other stores attract lots of consumers to make their visit again and again. For instance, this mall has lavished architecture and a nice blend of international and domestic brands, aesthetically designed corridors, food courts, movie theatre, and fun games. It also organizes promotional events during the festival seasons. It also includes recreational activities. It has Snow World to take the virtual experience of snow for those who can not afford to go hilly areas to enjoy the snow falling.

Figure 10

Uniqlo can open its large-format store in this mall. If Uniqlo stores will open in this mall, then it will have sufficient space, effective lighting, mesmerizing interior to showcase its products like AIRism T-shirts, AIRism Kurta, and UT t-shirts, etc. Customers in this large-format store can explore each product by getting the touch and feel of each product. Uniqlo usually hires employees and trained them to manage store efficiently and to attract more consumers towards their stores. Uniqlo staff always actively communicated with their in-store visitors by following Japanese systems, they always greet them politely at their entry and help them to find items in their stores. They explain the functionality of each innovative item such as AIRism t-shirts or HeatTech fabrics and the differential benefits of buying those special and unique innovative items.

We are also considering online e-commerce for Uniqlo in India. As online retailing is a future of the retail sector, it will help to understand consumer behavior through artificial intelligence tools. It will help Uniqlo to know the customers' tastes clearly through the feedback of customers about products and services. Due to COVID-19, India has imposed lockdown systems and all the existing three stores were completely closed during this pandemic. Even after removing the lockdown system, there is a limit on the entry of individuals, therefore this move will be beneficial to increase the sales of Uniqlo. Ecommerce will benefit Uniqlo in India not only in the short- run but also in the long-run. It will help Uniqlo to reach the different parts of the nation. It will further help Uniqlo to understand the demands of consumers of different parts of India through data mining and artificial learning so that they can meet their desires at the time of opening a brick and mortar store in those locations. Currently, Uniqlo has almost completed Uniqlo's website with a detailed description of each item such as size availability, functionality, and pricing of each item with a picture. It only requires a "buy now" button and shipping process to start e-tailing. Uniqlo's option to go online will be less expensive as compared to open physical stores.

The brand awareness of Uniqlo is quite less as compared to its competitors such as Zara and H&M in India. Uniqlo can use different promotional strategies to increase its brand awareness and to educate customers about the differential benefits of its innovation-inspired apparel like dresses embedded with AIRism, HeatTech, anti-wrinkle, and UV blocking technologies.

UNIQLO will try to establish a positive relationship with its customers. The very first step to allure consumers is the way of communication of UNIQLO's staff employed at the stores, how they greet them at their visit to the UNIQLO store. UNIQLO's staff go through training to learn how to welcome customers in the stores and how to organize a store to create positive vibes through the store's ambiance (Lieber, 2014). Whenever customers visit the store, staff use phrases like "Welcome to our shop" and "how can I help you?". Also, the staff of UNIQLO usually wear a uniform made by UNIQLO to promote and advertise the UNIQLO's product within their store. It will help its consumers to understand how people can look good wearing some simple and casual wears. UNIQLO uses big posters of models wearing their products throughout its stores. This is also a way to communicate with customers.

Uniqlo can use campaigning to increase brand awareness of the world's third-largest female apparel brand. Campaigning also can inform their audience about its best quality, reasonable price, and the functionality of each clothes. Uniqlo's collaboration with Indian designer Ritu Kumar and celebrity endorsement can enrich the endeavors of UNIQLO to increase its market share by reaching maximum number of potential customers. Celebrity endorsement can create desires within potential buyers to buy UNIQLO's products. Besides this, UNIQLO's special offers influence the purchasing decisions of customers. If consumers satisfy with the goods and services provided by UNIQLO, they can be loyal to the brand if they get what they exactly wanted to be.

Uniqlo uses one to one approach within its store when its salesperson communicates with customers about the functionality or innovative technology of its products. UNIQLO's staff members recommend some apparel to its consumers after understanding what exactly their customers want to buy. They educate them about the unique features

Uniqlo can use brand campaigning in Mumbai as Uniqlo did at the Delhi to launch UNIQLO at an Ambience shopping mall. In Delhi, Uniqlo did brand campaigning with the USP "Together in LifeWear". This unique selling proposition reflects Uniqlo's original slogan "Made for All". Besides this, UNIQLO can distribute flyers at the busiest location such as restaurants or food courts in the Phoenix MarketCity mall or trough the LED displays near the ticket counter of the railway station of Mumbai to strengthen the brand awareness of Uniqlo. Besides, UNIQLO has released short videos with the help of the BBH ad agency.

Flyers. This advertising method is cost-effective and highly targeted to urban locations. It can be included some celebrities like Kareena Kapoor Khan wearing AIRism Kurta. It should include information regarding the location of a new store, opening hours and days, and some essential information about products and offering of UNIQLO.

Billboards or Posters. Uniqlo can use its brand representatives near public transportation like railway stations, bus stops, and airports to attract customers towards their brand. All of the advertisement channels should use words like" third-largest apparel brand" to attract brand conscious people who want to wear branded clothes as their casual wears.

Campaigns. Before opening a new store in Mumbai, Uniqlo will set up campaigns to educate customers about the UNIQLO brand. It helps UNIQLO to inform the audiences about the best quality, innovative technology, and reasonable price of the products. For campaigning, we need to spend a sufficient amount of money to put some big eye-catching red cubes of UNIQLO’s logo which can be uniquely designed to reflect the culture and tradition of Mumbai as it has done before opening its first store in the Ambience mall in Delhi.

Social Networks. In India, UNIQLO has its official accounts named UNIQLO INDIA on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. On Instagram, it has around 30,000 followers. Whenever UNIQLO introduces a new innovative product, it posted their pictures with sufficient information on their social networking sites.

Homepage. UNIQLO also has its official website on the internet. Its website gives informational appeal to its customers by providing more detailed information such as price, size, and what is next to come of each apparel. To entice more customers, the homepage of UNIQLO INDIA can be changed according to each season and must show its hot offers at the beginning and ending of each season. This is completely free of cost way to advertise their products in the line. But it can reach only tech-savvy generation or those who visit the webpages of its website.

UNIQLO can give a special discount at the end of each season to clearance its inventory or attract more customers to make a buying decision.

UNIQLO can send direct emails to their subscribed customers to remind their customers about new offers such as a new product with new technology and end-of-season discount.

Figure 11

Uniqlo’s Promotion Mix for Advertising.

Budgeting included all costs such has sunk, fixed, variable, promotion, social media, online shopping.

We planned to open four stores with an area of 12,000 Square feet in Mumbai and Bangalore (two stores in each city). The approximate cost for buying a store is around 3,000,000; therefore, 12,000,000 CAD is considered for owning four stores.

Fixed cost includes employees wage, property taxes which is (3.5- 4%), utility costs and Website upgrade and maintenance. The dedicated budget for the fixed cost is 2,500,000 CAD Per year.

Variable cost is including advertising (Billboard Flyer and Social media), and we assume:

Billboards = 1,500,000 CAD

FLYER = 50,000 CAD for 2,000,000 flyers

Social media Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn = 750,000 CAD

All customer feedback, the idea from store managers, the advertising team, and so on, should be sent directly to the relevant departments. Departments should also provide appropriate solutions for implementation as soon as possible.

Quality control managers can regularly inspect Uniqlo's production centers to resolve production issues as soon as possible. Also, the Takumi” system and skilled textile artisans can be present at the production site to monitor and advise on the production process from the quality of the raw materials to the final product.

Uniqlo has a complete supply chain management from product planning to sales. Therefore their financial team can monitor revenue, cost of goods sold, operation cost, and expenses efficiently to calculate net income and net profit margin. Since the company uses a discount and sales strategy to increase market share. Therefore, monitoring should be done every month so that managers can have enough information for pricing decisions.

References

Ahmed, Balchandani, Beltrami, Berg, Hedrich and Rolkens. (2019). How India's Ascent Could Change the Fashion Industry. Mckinsey & Company. Retreived from

Anner, M., & Dutta, M. (2019). Sourcing Dynamics, Workers’ Rights, and Inequality in Garment Global Supply Chains in India.

Anwar, S. T. (2017). Zara vs. Uniqlo: Leadership strategies in the competitive textile and apparel industry. Global Business & Organizational Excellence, 36(5), 26–35. https://doi-org.ezproxy.myucwest.ca/10.1002/joe.21805

Avendus. (2020). Women’s Apparel Landscape in India.