Marketing, Sales and Negotiation skills: A Case Study of Gym Shark

This report discusses the role of marketing in supporting organizational objectives, SWOT and PESTEL analysis of Gym Shark, analysis of marketing mix, sales and negotiation skills applied by Gym Shark, and reflection on skills learnt. It is a case study of Gym Shark, a UK based company in manufacturing and retail industry dealing in fitness apparel, sportswear, and fitness fashion.

Marketing, Sales and
Negotiation skills

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
Role of Marketing in supporting organizational Objectives.......................................................3
PESTEL and SWOT Analysis of Gym Shark.............................................................................4
Analysis of Marketing Mix of Gym Shark.................................................................................6
Sales and Negotiation skills applied by Gym Shark...................................................................7
Reflection ...................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Business organizations need to market their products in order to promote them to boost
the sales and increase overall profitability of the business. For successful marketing of the
products, they need to use effective marketing strategies with appropriate marketing mix strategy
of their products. They should analyse the external environment by using various business
frameworks to execute marketing strategies efficiently (Nogueira, Gaspar and Gomes, 2022).
The following report will cover the role of marketing to support organizational objectives. The
chosen organization is Gym Shark. It is a UK based company in manufacturing as well as retail
industry headquartered in England and dealing in the products like apparels, sportswear, fitness
fashion etc. The report will cover the role of marketing in success of Gym Shark objectives ; its
SWOT and PESTEL Analysis. The report will also cover the Marketing mix to promote its
products. Further, it will also cover the sales and negotiation skills applied by Gym Shark and
thereby will present the reflection on skills learnt therefrom.
TASK
Role of Marketing in supporting organizational Objectives
Marketing plays a crucial role in promoting the business of the company and in achieving
its objectives by boosting sales and profitability of business. It helps in customer retention and in
increasing the market share of company. Marketing is basically a customer-centric concept that
facilitates achievement of objectives. It ensures customers' satisfaction by fulfilling their needs
by way of effective marketing techniques. Now a days businesses also uses digital marketing
strategies to promote their products through online platforms and by the use of E marketing and
M marketing (Valette-Florence, Meenaghan and Kahle, 2022). Businesses need to develop their
own website to advertise their products through internet marketing. Social media is also an
effective platform to advertise the products that customers need. In context with Gym Shark, it is
a British fitness apparel company in retail as well as manufacturing sector offering the products
in apparel , Athleisure and sports equipment industry. It was established in 2012 by Ben Francis
in England. It is a multinational company as its products are accessible to the customers of more
than 180 countries by its own website i.e. gymshark.com.
Gym Shark uses various marketing strategies to promote its products. It primarily
considers digital marketing to be effective for promoting its products worldwide. It has its

website in 13 languages by which it advertise its products and take orders for deliveries. It has its
brand for both men and women including t-shirts, leggings and hoodies etc. for marketing of its
brand products, it uses influencer marketing by joining with social media influencers such as
You tube , Lex Griffin etc. It is providing company huge benefits by paying influencers to
market its products through social media. It has a large number of followers on Instagram that
also support in marketing of its products through providing view of influencers. It has
successfully accomplished its desired objectives so far through effective use of marketing
strategies.
PESTEL and SWOT Analysis of Gym Shark
SWOT Analysis
This Analysis is a tool used by the business to analyse its internal strengths & weaknesses
and identify the external opportunities and threats in the market to improve the performance of
business. It provides overview of the position of company to take corrective measures to mitigate
the threats and grab the available opportunities (Joshi and Kulkarni, 2022). The SWOT Analysis
of Gym Shark is explained hereunder :
Strengths
 Marketing Strategy : Gym Shark
adopts a very effective marketing
strategy to market its products through
social media that attract more
customers through social media
platforms.
Weaknesses
 Online Delivery : It provides only
online deliveries of products that many
people do not prefer. Also, it involves
more shipment costs and overall
delivery time.
 Limited products for men : Gym
Shark provides more products for
female and less options for male which
causes switching of customers to other
similar companies that provide more
options to the male segment.
Opportunities
 Traditional marketing : It should use
traditional marketing techniques such
Threats
 Competition : Gym Shark has many
competitors operating in the same

as TV advertisements or billboards to
advertise its products as it will attract
more customers.
product line such as Adidas, Nike,
Puma, Reebok all are striving to
improve quality with reasonable prices
and gaining more market share as
compared to Gym Shark (Jingar, Singh
and Gupta, 2022).
PESTEL Analysis
This Analysis provides a framework to the businesses to analyse the external
environmental factors to measure their impact on the business of organization. It is imperative to
analyse their positive or negative impact and take corrective measures to improve the
performance of company (Suwelack, Stegemann and Ang, 2022). It considers the impact of 5
factors explained below. The PESTEL Analysis of Gym Shark is explained in the following table
:
PESTEL Factors Analysis for the business Positive /Negative impact on
the business
1. Political Factors : It includes
the impact of political policies
such as political stability, foreign
trade policies, taxation policies,
government grants etc.
Gym Shark had to face Brexit
impact and Covid19 impact due
to lock down restrictions.
It had negative political impact
due to disrupted business
because of trade restrictions.
2. Economic Factors : These
factors include interest rates,
inflation rates to be considered by
the companies for measuring their
impact on the price of products.
Currently, the economy of UK is
facing downturns due to the war
between Russia and Ukraine. It
will hinder the operations of
Gym Shark as well.
It will have to face negative
impact of down economy on
its products price.
3. Social factors : These factors
include the impact of customers'
preferences cultural norms ,
educational level of customers,
The target audience of Gym
Shark is individuals of 18-25
years old who mostly prefer
fashion and music. Their
Gym Shark may have positive
or negative impact of social
factors according to the
products offered, geographical

marketing trends etc. that affect
the demand of product.
demands and preferences will
affect its product's demand.
location of business etc.
4. Technological Factors : These
factors include impact of
technology such as innovation in
product, use of E-commerce such
as digital marketing etc.(Wang and
Xia, 2022).
Gym Shark has its own website
by which it accesses customers
of more than 180 counties. Also,
it uses influencer marketing by
social media platforms for
promoting its products.
It has positive impact of
technology as it is using digital
marketing to advertise as well
as deliver its products
successfully.
5. Environmental Factors : These
factors include environmental
sustainability to be considered by
the businesses.
Gym Shark must consider the
environmental factors to
differentiate itself from the other
competitors. It must use
recyclable packaging for its
products to avoid wastage for
promoting its brand image.
It could have negative
environmental impact because
it s products include apparels
that are burnt due to wastage
and other sports equipment
that can have bad
environmental impact.
6. Legal Factors : These factors
include laws and regulations of the
country such as Consumer
protection laws, license permits
etc.
It has consider various
applicable laws such as
consumer protection laws in case
of sports equipment to ensure
safety of customers.
It may have negative impact of
these factors in case of
violation of any of the
applicable laws.
Analysis of Marketing Mix of Gym Shark
Marketing Mix is a mixture of various components or tools that the company uses to
promote its products or brand in the target market to achieve desired objectives. A proper
marketing mix strategy helps the firm in developing a large customer base and in achieving the
large market share (Husain, Ahmad and Khan, 2022). It considers four P's that are explained
below. The marketing mix of Gym Shark is explained below :
Product Strategy Price strategy Place Strategy Promotion Strategy
1. Portfolio : It offers fitness Affordable pricing 1. Direct selling : It 1. Advertising : Gym Shark is

and fashion apparels &
accessories for both men and
women. Its product range
include t-shirts, leggings, vests
etc. Most of its products
include women apparels.
2. USP : Its portfolio also
includes gym wear. Its most
famous products are flex
leggings for women.
3. Vegan clothing : It ensures
its products to be animal
friendly by offering vegan
clothing products .
4. Trendy : It offers trendy
products be it apparels or other
sports equipments. It does not
offer more expensive apparels.
strategy
It does not offer much
expensive clothes. It adopts
pricing strategies keeping in
view its young audience. Its
products like leggings and
hoodies do not go beyond
$30 that it competitors offer
at $100. so, it does not have
high pricing strategy.
accesses customers of
almost 131 countries. By
direct to consumer selling.
2. Other locations : It has
offices in UK, US. It had
also opened innovation hub
and gym shark lifting club
at its headquarters. It is also
planning to expand its
locations in Rialto.
3. Pop-up stores : It opened
pop-up stores for brand
awareness that consisted of
athlete appearances. They
opened 7 pop-up stores of
which Toronto stored was
most successful.
able to adopt successful
marketing strategies by using
digital marketing through
social media platforms and
you tubers such as Lex
Griffin.
2. Influencer Marketing : It
has developed partnering with
social media influencers to
promote its products through
Instagram, TikTok and twitter.
As it deals in fitness products,
it joins with fitness influencers
to advertise its products. It
also uses its own website for
executing promotional
strategies.
3. Black Friday campaign :
Gym Shark organises two big
sales every year that includes
Black Friday for promotional
purpose (Amoako, 2022). It
also raise it sales and provides
customers with option to
ensure savings on gym wears.
Sales and Negotiation skills applied by Gym Shark
Negotiation skills are the inherent qualities that that assist the parties in providing
agreement to a common logical solution. Better negotiations contribute to effective sales
practices because they help in developing relationships with potential suppliers. The effective
negotiation skills help in deliver lasting and quality solutions instead of short-term solutions.

Effective negotiation skills help in forming long-term relationships between both the parties.
They also help in avoiding future problems in sales practices (Zhu and Zhu, 2022). For
developing negotiation skills to negotiate with the suppliers, businesses must quantify the value
and build strong relationship with the suppliers. Businesses must have appropriate strategies,
processes , tools and tactics for improving their sales and negotiation skills.
Gym Shark communicates with its customers through social media platforms and apply
effective negotiation skills with its customer through social media itself. As it does not provide
much expensive products as compared to the similar companies, it doe not need to reach at
complex negotiation. It has its own sales and negotiation strategies that are proved to be
successful in maintaining strong relationships with customers as well as suppliers due to its
quality products and partnership with big social media influencers (Eklund and van Criekingen,
2022).
Reflection
By learning the above module of marketing and getting the knowledge of sales and
negotiation skills, I have developed an effective understanding of Sales and Negotiation skills
that will help in my profession in marketing. It will ensure career development by learning the
skills that are required to be possessed as a prudent Marketing Manager. As Marketing Manager
is tasked with developing the strategies for marketing, he must also possess the sales and
negotiation skills to ensure profitable deal for the company. By the end of this module, I am able
to develop understanding of marketing mix as well as negotiation skills to handle customers as
well as suppliers.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it has been concluded that business organizations need to
develop effective marketing strategies for developing their customer base and thereby a large
market share to ensure long-term profitability of their business. Marketing managers must
develop effective marketing mix strategies including price as well as promotional strategies to
facilitate smooth functioning of business through effective promotions. Businesses must evaluate
their external environment to measure its impact on the business. They should use various
business tools and frameworks to monitor their performance such as SWOT Analysis , PESTEL

Analysis etc. For better marketing and increased sales, they should develop effective sales and
negotiation skills.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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educational diversity. Industry and Innovation, pp.1-21.
Husain, R., Ahmad, A. and Khan, B.M., 2022. The role of status consumption and brand equity:
A comparative study of the marketing of Indian luxury brands by traditional and social‐
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Communication and Social Marketing Strategies: Using Web TV Series to Challenge
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Valette-Florence, P., Meenaghan, T. and Kahle, L.R., 2022. Lifestyle and sport: Emulation
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