Factors behind the Growth and Increasing Globalization of Ted Baker Retail Brand - Essay Example

Analysis of Case Study to Evaluate Factors behind the Growth and Increasing Globalization of Ted Baker Retail Brand Introduction Currently, the performance and growth of Ted Baker brand has shown positive response in the retail market. Retail activities involve the act of buying goods or products from wholesalers or manufacturers in batch and sell them to consumer in broken bulk. Ted Baker refers to an international retailer dealing with cloth selling. The retail store is located in Glasgow city in Scotland where in early 1988 the retail specialized on selling men’s shirt. The paper will look into details some of the factors, which has led to growth of Ted Baker in the recent years. The result from retail performance has led to successful growth of its business across Middle East, Asia, Australasia and Europe. Factors that lead to increased globalization also require analyzation to find out what Ted Bakers does more than their competitors do (Laroche, 2011, p. 225). In recent years, Ted Baker retail has introduced variety of items rather than men’s wear that includes women wear, children wear, sleepwear and same accessories such as shoes. The retail has divided the store in different departments to enhance the accessibility of the items in the store. The retail has created its good reputation by providing better quality and services to customer. Good reputation brings about increased selling of product through word of mouth to different consumers located in different geographical areas. The selling of retail products across the globe has led to collection of large revenue for the company, which in turn increases the retails profit. High profit lead to expansion of the retail sector to other areas since the retail has saving that provides capital to start another store. By the end of the paper, the learner should know the factors underpinning the growth and increased globalization of Ted Baker retail sector (Caslione, 2003, p. 7) (Mirchandani, 2004, p. 355). Factors Leading to Growth of Ted Baker Retail Brand Provision of Quality Product Ted Baker retail mainly focuses on quality improvement for the products that they sell to the customer. The retail emphasizes on better quality and better design in order for them to attract large potential buyers willing to make purchases. Kelvin, the founder of Ted Baker states that better products and better design forms the key success for his retail store. He says that the retail focuses on design, tailoring and pattern since they know that it will command higher prices than that of their competitor. In contrary, the high price worth the quality of product sold and the customer are prepared to pay the extra bit for the product as compared to those sold by the competitor. The retail gains more revenue in selling their products at higher prices that lead to provision of extra cash to expand the store in other regions. Appropriate Store Design The design of store creates a good image since it reflects products sold by the retailer. The structure of the store should act like a mirror for the product sold to attract more customers in the retail. For instance, Ted Baker founder critically puts design consideration in place to ensure that product can sell themselves to customers without strain. The design of Tokyo store included booth fashioned of London black tax to represent some merchandise sold in the store. The lifestyle of branding image in store design has also exemplified in a newly opened store in Bluewater shopping Centre in United Kingdom. Store style provided an approach that appears to appeal target market as it provide touch screen, free in-store Wi-Fi and interactive installations in its outlets. The use of appropriate design captures more customers to the store who leads to increased sales of the retail that in turn promotes its growth and expansion (Oswald, 1999, p. 303). Division of Retail Store into Various Departments The retail has several segments that differentiate merchandise warehoused. Ted Baker located in New York has designed its store in such a way that unlike commodity appears in different segment. Men’s wear has their home location on the lower space level while women’s wear located in the upstairs department. Availability of this segmentations increases efficiency and easier location of item required by the customer, as they know exact place to find the item required. This saves customers time, which in turn encourages more repurchase and attract new customers to the retail. Increase in number of sales leads to generation of high revenue in retail that enables expansion of store to other areas (Eckhart, Dholakia, Varman, 2013, p. 222). Good Reputation of Retail Store Ted Baker has created good reputation to customer in marketing environment. The retail sells quality products and design to meet customer satisfactions thus improves on its reputation to customer. The retail has gained reputation especially during Easter holiday of a certain year where they ran a giveaway program. The giveaway campaign consisted of giving chocolate to customer who bought or purchased item from their store. During 2006 world cup football, they created football cards featuring players that enables them improve retail reputation. Having good reputation encourages customers to make several purchases from the store, which in turn increases the revenue of the retail (Fellman, 1999, p. 2). Generation of more revenue leads to expansion and growth of the retail store as they can stock more items required by the consumer and able to meet their needs and wants. Factors Leading to Increased Globalization for Ted Baker Retail Brand Marketing for products from Ted Baker retail has extended across the entire globe. The extension of this items results from various factors, which enables them to capture attention of people located in different areas. These factors include the following: Medium of Advertising Ted Baker retail uses the new media for advertising its products such as you tube that differs from their competitor’s traditional advertising media. The main target for Ted retail cut across the young literate people that comprises of income earning population. This people have different taste and preference and retail have to consider them while distributing the product. Most people search for information about items on net and retail placing information of items sold increases their market since people will get details required (Quelch and Deshpande, 2004, p. 11). The use of you tube has enabled retail improve on its global selling since large population located in different geographical region can obtain the information (James, 1996, p. 344). E- Commerce E- Commerce forms another factor that lead to increased globalization for Ted Baker retail brand. It involves the process of using internet to sell its items and product to customers located in different geographical region across the globe. E- Commerce facilitates the selling of items to customers without necessarily meeting each other (Van De Bunt-Kokhuis, 2004, p. 269). This saves cost and time both for the retailer and consumer as negotiation can take place online. It also enables the retailer sell the product to large consumer located in widespread area across the continent thus increasing their sales (Scholte, 2000, p. 611) (Levitt, 1983, p.1). Lack of Cross Border Barrier The retail store ease for selling the products across the entire globe as resulted due to reduced trade barrier between the countries. A retailer can trade in the other country without legal law restriction. This has led to increased globalization trade due to free entry and exit in the market of another country. The tax levied in trading also reduces and the retail can generate more sales revenue to promote its growth across the continent. Ted Baker retail can move across the border of different continent freely without restriction thus improving on their sales in the product that they sell (Ritzer, 2007, p. 89). Extent to Which the Ted Baker Brand Provides Evidence of Cultural Convergence or Culture Divergence Culture plays a major role in predicting consumers purchasing behavior in the international market. The advent of globalization has brought a debate on the issue of convergence or divergence in consumer behavior (Muto and Khilji, 2007, p 49). The case study on Ted Baker will enable us evaluate whether globalization of retail has led to convergence or divergence in the consumer culture (Christiansen, Turkina, and Williams, 2013, p. 612). Culture Convergence refers to merging of homogenization and cultural values of consumers across different nations. Most research shows that globalization has contributed largely to convergence of customer’s homogenization and needs of the market. preamble of the novel technology has caused homogenization of customers wants and needs has they prefer low price, high quality and standard products (Kjeldgaard and Askegaard, 2006, p. 231). They believe that technology and globalization leads to emergence of consumers globally who anticipates standardized products and services with quality performance across the nations. Other factors such as political stability, colonization fear and ideology driven economy also leads to culture convergence (McCort and Malhotra, 1993, p. 91) (Eckhardt, Dholakia, and Varman, 2011, p. 222). In the case study on Ted Baker, retail culture convergence has clearly come out. The introduction of globalization for the selling of the retail product has brought effect on the culture. The introduction of new technology for selling product such as E-commerce can lead to homogenization and customer value adoption. The customer can develop same preference and taste about a particular product due to the information given about the products. People believe and attitude tends to grow because of the benefit that they obtain from the given product. The retail provides quality cloth and better design that meet the customer demands and need. This leads to culture divergence as most consumers will prefer the best quality item and better designed cloth. They all have the same perception about the cloth, which leads to culture convergence (Kaplinsky, 2000, p. 117). The use of modern methods of advertising as you tube also leads to culture convergence. Most people assume that the items described on the media gives the general information about the item. The consumer will tend to believe that the item sold has quality perception and standard required. Most of the will tend to purchase a common item since their attitude, believe, value and perception has been manipulated. Culture also result from the society and religion that one is brought up in. society can influence the buying of a commodity for an individual as they dictate which item lies with the society believe and perception (Christiansen, Turkina, and Williams, 2013, p. 612). In contrary, culture diversity can result has the level of technology and globalization increases. The research shows that diversity arise due to different language and writing style as individual may fail to understand the intended meaning of a particular item. The perception of a given commodity value may differ in different regions and countries as most consumers have different believe about the item (Firat and Venkatesh, 1995, p. 239). An item considered the best quality in a given country may have a direct perception on the other country. As Ted Baker retail increases it globalization concept across the entire continent, may have a culture diversity approach. This results because different people have different views about the item. Believes that consumers have on quality and performance may differ among them leading to culture diversity (Howes, 1996, p. 179). Conclusion In conclusion, the paper involves the analysis of Ted Baker retail success over a certain period. Ted Baker retail refers to an international organization dealing with the selling of cloth such a men’s wear, women wear, children wear, sleepwear and other accessories. Factors leading to tremendous growth of the retail have tackled. These factors include better quality, good reputation, appropriate segmentation and appropriate design. Evaluation of factors leading to globalization also put into considerations. These factors include advertising media, e-commerce and increased level of technology. The application of this factor has enabled Ted retail to achieve its competitive advantage over the competitor and increase revenue as well as the profit gained. Adoption of globalization within Ted retail has led to culture convergence and divergence within different natation across the continent. People may have common believe and perception about an item which lead to convergence culture as they may tend to purchase same commodity. 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