Structural Organization and Marketing Strategy for Gymboree - Case Study Example

Case Study of a Selected Brand of Children's Wear

Introduction

Gymboree is an American San Francisco- based organization that has over time specialized into stocking all kinds of children’s wear. It operates a chain of more than 1200 speciality retail stores of children's wear in Canada, Puerto Rico, and the United States. The company stocks children’s wear ranging from girl wear to baby wear. Some of the girl's wear found in the various stores include; dresses and rompers, tops, swimwear, active wear sleepwear, shoes and accessories, outwear, and bottoms. On the other hand, the boy's wear stocked in the majority of the stores include; tops, swimwear, active wear, sleepwear, shores and accessories among others.

Figure 1: Showing Toddlers and baby wear

Source: ("Gymboree: Tips for Stretching your Dollars + Loving the New Spring & Collections - Finding Debra", 2017)

The company has been on its expansion and has included a number of programs that useful during different levels of children growth. For instance, they have developed Gymboree play and music centers that offers non-therapeutic sensory-motor, early childhood art and music program, they do establish birthday parties from where children come to celebrate and mark their born day, children programs that are kids can attend with or without their parents, exercise programs, theme parties, programs for parents and parents to be, storyline parties for infants and children for specified ages brackets. The report seeks to investigate and identify a number of aspects and perspectives about the Gymboree Company, some of the areas to be covered include; the organizational structure of the company, location of the company, origin, marketing strategies, product profile, visual merchandise, unique selling proposition, opinion of the targeted population, and lastly my own interpretation of the brand.

Figure 2: Showing children's partying and enjoying zones

Source: ("Gymboree: Tips for Stretching your Dollars + Loving the New Spring & Collections - Finding Debra", 2017)

Location and origin

To start with, the company was first established in the year 1976 by Joan Barnes, and by 1984, the company had expanded to 125 Gymboree franchises that operated in twenty states in America. Gymboree Corporation is situated in San Francisco, California manufactures, designs, and stocks high quality, unique apparel and accessories mostly for children and women. The company has retail business under the brand name the Janie and Jack, Janesville, and Gymboree. In 1986, the company opened a chain of clothing stores named Gymboree that offers a coordinating children's clothing. Currently, it operates eight stores, 292 crazy, 131 Janie and Jack, 155 Gymboree Outlet, and 635 Gymboree retail in the United States of America. It is important to note that, the clothes that are offered in these stores vary in size ranging from that of newborn babies to size ten, to precise, the company offers most of the clothes for children within the age of four and fourteen.

Notably, in the year between 1984 and 1990, the company established children’s recreational and exercise program which represented a small portion of the overall income or revenue that was being generated. In spite of the low percentage that was being contributed at the time, the business had started to find success with more children recreational programs being invented and implement. This led to tremendous growth and expansion of the company. Most the stocks that are found in the new brand, Gymboree that was established in 1986 owes its origin from some of these activities that had started developing roots within the large Gymboree Company in the United States. Most importantly is that, by 1984, the company was a triumph, with Barnes's net worth going past $1 million in revenue annually. The exponential growth that was experienced in the mid-1980's led to the establishment of other retail centers, with Gymboree retail store for children coming into existence at this particular time.

Structural Organization of the Corporation

The organization is structured to include some Gymboree retails, Gymboree outlet, Janie and Jack, crazy and stores. These various departments are operated by chief executive officers under the president chief executive officer. Also of importance is that, the corporation has included board of members in its management with various chairpersons being appointed to represent the interests of each organization, For instance, Banana Republic LLC is led by Mark Breitbard, Bain capital Inc. under the leadership of the Joshua Bekenstein, New Mountain Capital headed by Lewis Klessel, and lastly the Gymboree corporation under the leadership of Mark Weikel. Hence, it can be said that the Gymboree organization that stocks children’s wear with the inclusion of women wear is piloted and driven by the board members led by Mark Weikel as the chairman. For every unit or store under the Gymboree Corporation reports to the chairman of the Company who in turn reports to the President chief executive officer for all the corporation under the umbrella of Gymboree.

Marketing Strategy

Fundamentally, the rate of modernization and technological advancement has led to the development of various strategies that corporation use to ensure they are not eliminated from the market by competitors. The Gymboree Corporation faces stiff competition from the other companies that are situated almost in the states within the United States. Some of the companies that manufacture, designs, and retails children's apparel and accessories include; The Children Place Inc., Discovery Toys, Carter's, Inc., Target Corporation, Leap Frog Enterprises, Inc. and The Gap Inc., among many others. The company is therefore poised with the challenge of coming up with measures and project plans to ensure that the competitors are kept at bay. Most importantly, it was established from their websites that, the company has for the last three years been operating under a loss due to its increased cost of the interlinked retail stores. To ensure the success that the corporation has registered from its initiation, Gymboree Company has relied on a multi-tiered portfolio of brands which varies from the value-priced Crazy 8 to upscale Janie and Jack to connect with the targeted customers, who for this case mostly are women or moms. Notably, the company has over the years been expanding and opening new branches across the states and to that end, the corporation planned to open up 25 new stores, distributed evenly across all the stores by the end of 2015 fiscal year. Also, the company expected its international franchise partners to open up more locations between 15 and 20 over the same period.

The Product or the Company Profile

Importantly, in spite of the company being close to 40 years of operation, Gymboree is undergoing severe ups and downs. Precisely, the company is still a toddler, stumbling at times, adapting, learning and expanding rapidly. The corporation specializes in the sale, or the retail of the kids wear and accessories majorly in areas such as Australia, Canada, United States of America, and Puerto Rico. It operates 630 Gymboree stores that stock interesting, colorful, and exciting fashionable rompers, sleepwear, active wear, swimwear, tops, bottoms, and playsuits for children up to the age between 12 and 14 years. Gymboree Corporation operates 160 and more Gymboree Outlet stores, 145 Janie and Jack which are better suited for new born and toddlers, and corresponding e-commerce sites. Delightfully, the company provides and operates parent-child play programs which exclusively designed to enhance early childhood development for the new born up to ten years and there about. The company is also faced with a debt tsunami and filed for chapter eleven, bankruptcy protection in June 2017 and has in September emerged back an extensive restructuring process.

Description of Visual Merchandise, Store appeals, and Seasonal Variation

Through the director of visual merchandising, the corporation has continued to grow beyond the domestic borders and is expanding at a rapid pace upholding or without compromising the commitment quality. Also, the company has employed and hires excellent people with visual merchandising talents that it takes to keep the expansion realizable. The director leads the structuring and the development of the target population shopping experience for all the brands including the children's wear. He directs the visual merchandising team in creating presentations that are compelling, drive traffics, and support the business needs. It is through this that, the deadlines and workload for the various departments are met without fail. On the issue of the store's appeal, the corporation has ensured that the branches are fitted with different colorful materials, equipment, clothes, and accessories that are appealing to both the kids and the moms. The corporation ensures variation of fashions by keeping a close eye to the new arrivals in the market.

Figure 3: Showing the brand shoes for kids wear

Source: ("Gymboree: Tips for Stretching your Dollars + Loving the New Spring & Collections - Finding Debra", 2017)

Unique Selling Proposition

It has been established that the corporation has significantly infused other children programs that attract moms who later are compelled to shop from the Gymboree Corporation. Some of the programs that the company has introduced include the play and exercise programs for children, the establishment of art and music programs for the kids as well as the development of the parents and parents to be guidance programs. This has provided a lot of excitement and hence making the corporation achieve the current cutting edge in the market  ("Gymboree: Tips for Stretching your Dollars + Loving the New Spring & Collections - Finding Debra", 2017).

Opinions of Clients/ Target population

Notably, the target population seems to pride much on the products that are offered by the corporation and some are almost developing the raving fans attitude towards the programs, services and children wear that are offered by the company.

My View or Interpretation of the Design Brand

I think through the incorporation of the various children programs, new retail stores, and the fair prices offered by the company has helped it achieve progress well despite the significant debts that the company seem to be facing, and also the bankruptcy state that the company has found itself in between June and August. The children's wear offered under this brand seem to be doing pretty well, and hence the company should keep it up in ensuring that children remain excited in the parts where its operational and elsewhere.