Retail Marketing in the Cloth Store to Entering Kenya - Business Plan Example

Introduction

International marketing has not been an easy task to many people across the globe. There are inherent marketing problems for any ambitious retailer due to the changing world market operations. Some of the worlds’ states have well-organised structure regarding market systems in such a way that it favors or discourage the vendors. More than ever, cloth store chains like any other merchants have their unique marketing problems that call for strategic planning. Merchandisers face unique problems that include tariff barriers to trade, administration policies, political instability, unfavorable weather or climatic, plains constraints, problems of the exchange rate and national insecurities among others (Pfeiffer & Keller 2000). Inducing appropriate or desirable sales to most of the customers, calls for ample considerations in a good marketing plan. This document proposes a marketing plan in the cloth store to enter Kenya.

Country Analysis and Choice of Brand

Bangladesh textile industry is fundamental to the natives; in 2012, 42% of its country population was employed in the textile industries. Currently, it has over four million workers in the clothing and textile industry. Textile worker suffers a great deal due to industrial malpractices, poor salaries, and unsafe working environment. There is always a push to reforms by various union leaders. According to Michael O’Neil (2015), there is a need for law changes and other enforceable change to the Bangladesh’s textile companies.

In Canada, the clothing industry produces wear for men and women as well as furs, foundation garments, hosiery, gloves, sweaters. Such diverse production drives the demand for textile industry to rise to 53% between 1999 and 2004. Retailing in Canada has become a challenge due to the high cost of production and running retails (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development 2010).

Kenyan market for cloth highly depends on imports. Such imports are of low quality: the importation is of second-hand apparent, natively called mitumba. According to Wanduara and Nguku (2010), used apparel has led to the collapse of the textile industry. 4% of textile and clothing have survived from the collapsed ones, 96% since the 1980s. Kenya is the ideal market to introduce the brand, Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans. I choose this American Brand of jeans to wear since some Kenyans are familiar with it (Sullivan 2006). It is one of the brands found in Kenyan local markets as second hand and at a low quality. Kenyans have the taste of high quality since people have a great taste of fashion, elegance, and it is affordable to most Kenyan women.

Kenya is the country that has minimal industries manufacturing clothes, unlike Bangladesh and Canada (Otieno 2011). In addition, the country is struggling to ensure its citizen use new brands of clothing, either locally made or imported (Mccormick & Rogerson 2004). The country is developing, implying that there is room for new retail stores, and the cost of running a business is cheaper than the other countries. Many people in Kenya wear jeans, which make the brand of attire as ideal.

Competitors of the Cloth Chain Store

Among the many competitors of the Gloria Vanderbilt, Jeans stores are the western charities, the Kenya’s Appeal and Textile industry and Dubai Textile. Many European countries donate clothes to Kenya, just like other African countries. Some attires are distributed by western charity; a retail store in Kenya. The major competitors of Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans retailing in Kenya is a retail outlet known as the Western Charities; the venture uses low pricing strategies so as to keep the store running while others crumble down (Mccormic & Rogerson 2004). The second is the Kenya’ Appeal and Textile, the largest apparel industry in Kenya. It offers alternative wear of Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans. The best it does is exporting, a small proportion buy locally made attires (Mason, Klerk, Sommervile & Ashdown 2008). Merchants should ensure that there is a massive sale of the jeans, there should be a well-designed way of the brand into the market, for instance, the system of trade entry, objective setting, marketing strategies, finally the budget and control.

Market Entries for Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans

• Direct Exporting
• Direct exporting is one of the major marketing strategies used by exporting countries by using personal resources. Given the brand of jeans at hand, the best thing is to ensure there are various agents and product distributors in Kenya. These agencies are going to be responsible for direct connect of the proposed apparel to the Kenyan market so that Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans are accessible to many clients. Choosing distributors and agents are very crucial, this process for obtaining optimal results call for selecting prominent individuals, as they are the face of the company.
• Licensing other firms
• Licensing to other retailing companies is a sophisticated arrangement established between big businesses in Kenya. The agreement will ensure that the rights to the product are well shareable with a company that is well known. Licensing is possible if companies would buy licenses at a reasonable fee. The licensing strategy will enhance the product to enter the market using firms that have significant shares in the apparel market.
• Partnering with other companies
• Through partnerships, the brand will be able to find its way into the market, making it possible to collect more revenue from sales through the increased market channels. For optimal benefits, the partnership would be restricted to companies that have a substantial difference when it comes to the cultures of businesses that previously handled the product at hand. Such partnership will facilitate our marketing team with local knowledge of the market and contacts to clients.
• Joint Ventures with foreign companies

Joint working with other venture will ensure that the risks are minimal (Shaw et al. 2009). A typical business will enable the creation of new marketing firm in Kenya at a low cost since there is a cost sharing between companies. Through joint venturing, there will be increased enjoyment of economies of scale.

• Buying of Local Businesses
• If the funding of the marketing plan is sufficient, there will be buying of companies in Kenya. It will enhance direct market entering. Moreover, the firm will get to competitors directly, thus enabling level competition with local rivalries. Being a local company will also improve treatment from the state its citizens as a local venture. Such purchases are crucial part local businesses in Kenya are even given subsidies and a few or no restrictions.
• Piggybacking

These involve several efforts to ensuring that marketing firms around are incorporating the brand at hand in their inventories to ensure products are entering the international market. Such deliberate efforts are selective to companies that exporting goods to Kenya either directly or indirectly. It reduces some risks, especially if a company shipping has insurances for its goods. Also reduces the cost of transporting the goods because the company is marketing on the behalf of the team marketing Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans.

Marketing Objectives

The aspiration of the strategic marketing plans is to ensure there is increasing product awareness to the target customers by 20% before the year 2017. Secondly is the enlightenment of the identified clients about the nature of the product, its benefits and advantages of its competition. All these knowledge at the buyers’ disposal will lead to an increase of nine percent in a year. The final objective is to propel the customers opposing to buy Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans to increase by nineteen per a hundred in less than a month (Ahmed & Rafiq 2002).

• • Types of Marketing Strategies to Employ
  • Entry to the market of the brand into the Kenyan cloth market is not the only important part of the marketing plan (Johansson & Rantzer 2012). Moreover, marketing strategies are essential when it comes to ensuring that clients are well enticed to purchase a product. The following are the plans of action intended to meet the goals of the marketing management team (Antunes 2010).
  • Cause Marketing

The discovering passion of community, and participating in them is likely to boost customer preference of the product. For instance, involved in charities from a portion of the sale’s profit can elevate then the image of the firm since people can identify themselves with it. It also shows that the company is not only there to reap profit from people but also to support community enhancement processes.

• • Relationship Marketing

Establishing relationship between the companies is very useful to the firm. It ensures continued buying of the brand on sale. Association between company and client however not on transactional marketing, but customization of the brand, keeping the customers informed on product advancement and to make sure that the individual is provided with additional service so that they can identify with the firm.

Transactional Marketing

To sell the product in high volumes to consumers, retailers should encourage the clients to use coupons and discounts. Promotional events will be conductible as they are very useful when it comes to making the persons interested in the brand (Mason et al. 2008).

• • Scarcity Marketing

To ensure that the product is available to more consumers at a given time, the product should be made accessible all the time and in all company stores. The retailers can use various principal that change the clients’ decisions to convince the buy the product. For instance, store notices such as; stock lasts in a day.

• • Word of Mouth Marketing

Oral communication from one individual to another is a means of marketing (Varey 2002). Communicating aids a lot in creating genuine word of mouth for the product represented by the company when it comes like to sharing stories of how products are right. It is very useful to ensure that communication with the customers is skillful (Wilson & Gilligan 2005).

• • Viral Marketing

It involves plans that provide the consumer with talks of the brand in most of the conversational forums such as the social media, mass media, or even trends on newspaper. Viral marketing involves creating stories or any creativity that relates to the brand, making the product’s name sell out to more consumers.

• • Diversity Marketing

When selling the brand, the management team should ensure that product is well managed to cater for most communities that are in Kenya. Advertising marketing involves tastes, expectation, specific needs, beliefs, and worldviews.

• • Mass Marketing

It involves spending a substantial amount of money in understanding voluminous data. Understanding big data calls for placing media where there is a potential national customer for the brand. Among the data that is supposed to be understood are the market statics and its dynamism. Through mass marketing, clients feel royal and warm.

• • Seasonal Marketing
  • Occasionally, there are special events in life that add meaningful thoughts and feelings to the lives of people. Participating in such events gives the customers a sense of recognition, which turns out to be one of the most events to recognize the brand. The firm can also find a new client in the course of marketing. Seasonal marketing is very vital to customers as well since they can plan and save money to use during implementation.
  • PR Marketing

Steve Jobs, the Apple’s founder, used to conduct a conference meeting on emerging products. It is one of his known strategies to business that up to date is a continued tradition. Conference meetings have proven to be necessary as a marketing strategy, for these reasons, it cannot be taken lightly. These proposals will receive a confirmation that conferencing prioritization is pivotal for the brand in Kenya.

• • Online Marketing

Most of the Kenya is accessible to the internet. Browsing provides the retailers with an opportunity to conduct trade on the website. In this scheme, internet popes from website indicating the brand of jeans at hand will be managed. Most of the people accessing the internet will be made aware the company’s brand, ensuring there is a progressive direct reach to clients.

• • Offline Marketing

Offline marketing can prove to be a powerful marketing strategy. The marketing team can collaborate with other expertise and come up with the offline app, specifically for marketing the company brand. The offline market depends heavily on electronics devices; the fact these electric gadgets are many and diverse among Kenyans makes the move idea.

• • Direct Marketing

Communicating directly with buyers and through mailboxes, email, texts, flyers and other promotional material makes them feel important. The customers subject to buying as they pose desires to attaining original apparels and not meeting brokers who earn a lot from setting prices high, making the prices unsatisfactory (Morgan et al. 2007).

• • Inbound Marketing

Sometimes customers call to enquire about the product they have bought. Such a call leads to a more buying when they are updated or convinced to purchase of goods. The principal objective of inbound marketing is selling more to an interested client.

• • Freebie Marketing

Other products related to the brand of jeans at hand should be lowly priced or given free. These free give always serves as an enticement to the brand of cloth on sale. This method will be useful as Kenyans like gifts and market offers (Reeves et al. 2015).

• • Newsletter Marketing

The company employing the art of wringing newsletters is crucial to the marketing management. Some newsworthy things are the best a company can include in the newsletter, for example sharing the insight of investment to create a sense of participation and a feeling of inclusion (Hughes 2000).

• • Content Marketing

Kenya has many schools and publishing sites; it is very unlikely to publish a book and get no readers. A significant percentage of people know how to read and write, thus writing and publishing a book or and other readable materials is crucial when it comes to influencing buyers without selling to them directly (Harner & Zimmerman, 2002).

• • Tradeshow Marketing

People always use the products they understand. Before buying a product, buyers do enough research. The marketing plan used in tradeshow is gathering people so that they can understand the product directly from the merchandisers. Through congregating of clients, the retailers can provide sample cloth product to possible buyers (Lymbersky 2008).

Marketing Programmes

The target market is the youth; they constitute over 60% of the population. Young men and women are a most likely customer. The primary target markets are the shopping malls, shop outlets or the apparel stores (Weiss 2012).

The management team in marketing will include the following: A computer programmer, to handle technical online marketing such designing website for the brand. A secretary qualified in Kiswahili and English for article writing since they are the languages used in Kenya. A public relation individual to host conferences. A construction engineer, to take charge in constructing new and maintaining old storage facilities, and finally an accountant for auditing on sales made by the chain store. Apart from the qualified field, any individual can be assigned other roles that they fit (Hughes 2000).

The cost of one Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans is Ksh 1600, approximately $16 inclusive of government taxes. Without the taxes, trouser should be any price between Ksh 1400 to Ksh 1500. The primary objective of pricing is to stabilize prices and to maximize profit.

Implementation

In the application process, for instance, educating the customer will Increase customer awareness of programs and thus increase the product familiarization. Custer learning would be doable through; issued brochures, displays during event marketing and direct mailings

Direct customer contact will be through face-to-face communication and email them.

Budget and Control

Responsibility Accounting

Responsibility accounting is also a proper budgetary control technique. In this method, we create cost center, profit center, and investment center. All these centers are just like the department of any organization. Now, we classify our all employees work by their centers. Every employee’s responsibility is fixable on his target or performance. After this, we record their performance manually. Then, we fix their accountability (Chinchuluun 2013). Adjustment of Funds

In this technique of budgetary control, top management takes the decision to adjust capital from one project to another project. In the adjustment of funds, we also use fund flow analysis. We can also decrease misuse of funds by forecasting proper amount (Mckinney 2003). Zero Base Budgeting

Zero-base budgeting is the modern technique of budgetary control. In this technique, every next year budget is made on zero incidences. It can only be possible if an estimated income will be equal to the estimated expenses. At that time, the difference between estimated revenues and estimated expenses will be zero. If there is any excess, it will be adjusted. For example, if your estimated revenue is more than expected expenses, you need to increase the amount or allocate in new estimated costs. With this, nothing will go to next year. With zero base budgeting technique, the firm can control the money, which it has to spend. Its base will be the current year income only.

Conclusion

The proposal is an ideal document of the researcher seeking fund or other considerations. Therefore, it requires sufficient background knowledge of the professional area in which plan is useful. For proper of retailing, the company should ensure there is well-designed marketing management team. Any set objective should be gearing towards business goal. It requires a marketer to understand the nature of firm he or she is involved in before engineering a plan to market any given brand.

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