Analyzing Changes in Marketing Distribution Channels in Fashion

This report examines the significant changes occurring in marketing distribution channels within the fashion industry. It identifies key drivers such as rapid technological advancements, increasing competition, evolving social trends, and shifting consumer behavior. The report highlights the integration of e-commerce channels as a primary adaptation, detailing its advantages like broader market reach, lower costs, and enhanced customer service, alongside drawbacks including customer inability to try products, heightened competition, trust-building challenges, and management complexities. Ultimately, the report concludes that embracing these changes, particularly e-commerce integration, is crucial for fashion companies to maintain competitiveness and relevance in the evolving market landscape. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar solved assignments and study resources.

Running Head: MARKETING & MANAGEMENT 0
MARKETING & MANAGEMENT
Student name
3/12/2019

MARKETING & MANAGEMENT 1
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Fundamental reasons for this change...............................................................................................4
Most significant reason....................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

MARKETING & MANAGEMENT 2
Introduction
The maketing distribution channel is the relevant part of marketing strategy, which needs
to optimized for cost minimization, profit maximization for the company. Innovation must be
included in the channel of distribution for the company to work as per the changing external
environment and industry (Chirstopher, 2017).
The report will include the major changes in the channel of distribution, and reasons for
this change in the fashion industry. The fashion industry includes companies that are dealing in
men’s and women’s apparel, fashion accessories and much more. This industry has been
changed since years, the reason being, major changes in external environmental factors (Choi &
Park, 2016).

MARKETING & MANAGEMENT 3
Fundamental reasons for this change
 Technology – The technology changes very rapidly, which allows the company to
upgrade its system as per the technological advancement to gain an advantage, and
sustain in the market. For instance, the introduction to the digital world has tended the
company in the fashion industry to opt the technology and transform the channel of
distribution as per the e-commerce facilities.
 Competition – New entries are easy in this industry, and become a major competition,
due to innovation, and reaching out globally through modern marketing distribution
channels. Therefore, it can be said that in order to gain a competitive advantage in this
industry, companies need to bring relevant changes in the channel of distribution.
 Social trends and consumer behavior – The social trends have been changing, and people
spend their maximum time on the internet and social media networks, which has
introduced to the company to reach out to the customer online. This includes selling
goods online and considering the social media platform for marketing channels.
Moreover, consumer behavior is the major reason for the changes, as the customer
expectations are increasing with time, as per the change in trends they are expecting
services like delivery at home. Customer relationship management has a significant role
in today’s world, which has also influenced the companies to change the channel of
distribution and marketing channels (Evans, 2011).
Most significant reason
Among these, one of the most significant reasons for the change in marketing distribution
channel in the fashion industry would be technology. The major process of changing the channel
includes the integration of e-commerce channels along with the traditional channel of the
company.
The major advantages of e-commerce channels include:
 Wide target market – The companies are able to reach out to the maximum customers at a
time through this mode, and the target market of the company can be broadened.

MARKETING & MANAGEMENT 4
 Easy to expand the market – The Company can sell its product internationally through
this mode of channel easily (Gupta, 2014).
 Lower financial costs – The financial cost of the company decreases with this channel
due to increase in scale.
 Service orientation – The Company would be able to provide service to the company
through online mode of the channel and increase customer satisfaction while creating
value to the customers.
 Access to customer data –The Company would be able to increase the customer database
and would be able to use the data for impulsive purchase marketing strategy (Sener,
Savrul, & Incekara, 2014).
Drawbacks of e-commerce channel are:
 Inability to try – The customers are not able to try the products before making a purchase,
which seems to be one of the major reason for customers to hesitate the online purchase.
 Highly competitive – This mode of the channel has been adopted by maximum
competitors, which leads it to be a highly competitive industry, which may also lead to
price cut competition (Srinivasan, Anderson, & Ponnavolu, 2015).
 Creating trust – The trust building is very difficult with this mode of the channel for the
companies among customers. Especially in the case of the fashion industry, where the
people are not sure about the color, size, and quality without seeing the product.
 Management issues – For this change, the company has to include delivery facilities to
various location, which could be costly for the company at times and the management of
the company could be disturbed due to this mode of channel (Pandey, 2016).

MARKETING & MANAGEMENT 5
Conclusion
From the report, it can be concluded that the fashion industry is changing rapidly, and
due to change in technology, social trends, customer behavior and increase in competition, the
need for change in marketing distribution channel has been increased. The major change would
be the integration of e-commerce channel, due to change in the technological environment. There
are advantages and disadvantages to this mode of the channel. However, it has become necessary
for the companies to adopt in the fashion industry to sustain in the market.

MARKETING & MANAGEMENT 6
References
Chirstopher, M. (2017). New directions in logistics. In Global logistics and distribution planning
. London: Routledge.
Choi, D., & Park, D. (2016). Innovative service concept generation based on integrated
framework of design thinking and VRIO: the case of information supporting system for
SMEs in Korea. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual International Conference on
Electronic Commerce: e-Commerce in, 23.
Evans, J. (2011). Retailing in perspective: the past is a prologue to the future. The International
Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 21(1), 1-31.
Gupta, A. (2014). E-Commerce: Role of E-Commerce in Today's Business. International
Journal of Computing and Corporate Research, 4(1).
Liu, X. (2018). Study on the Strategies of the E-commerce Implementation in Binchuan Grape
Industry of China——Based on SWOT Quantitative Analysis Method. Proceedings of
Business and Economic Studies, 1(1), 1.
Pandey, A. (2016). An engagement-based customer lifetime value system for e-commerce. In
Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge
Discovery and Data Mining, 293.
Sener, S., Savrul, M., & Incekara, A. (2014). The potential of e-commerce for SMEs in a
globalizing business environment.,. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 35-45.
Srinivasan, S. S., Anderson, R., & Ponnavolu, K. (2015). Customer loyalty in e-commerce: an
exploration of its antecedents and consequences. Journal of retailing, 41.