Retail Theory and Practice: A Report on Marks & Spencer

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Retail: theory and practice
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Contents
1. Which company will you be looking into? If this does not work out what would be your
second choice most likely be?.........................................................................................................3
Fashion Retail Industry....................................................................................................................3
2. From your intrinsic knowledge of the business world, identify some of the macro
environmental factors that are or will have an impact on fashion retail..........................................4
Macro Environmental factor affecting the fashion industry............................................................4
3. From your intrinsic knowledge of the business world, identify some of the micro
environmental factors that are or will have an impact on fashion retail..........................................5
Micro-environmental Factors..........................................................................................................5
4. From the information and knowledge that you have already, try and identify
theories/ideas/concepts that could be useful and or used................................................................5
5. Resources that you that you will be or could be consulting in your planning and writing of
the report..........................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7
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1. Which company will you be looking into? If this does not work out what would be
your second choice most likely be?
Fashion Retail Industry
Retailing can be considered as a convincing, comfortable and convenient method of providing
services and goods to the customers. Retailing is as old and businesses but has developed many
shapes and forms as per changes in the customers' demands and their standard of living. This
change has also resulted from the developed management techniques and the changed principles
of marketing.
Retails can also be defined as a term of e-commerce. It includes both, buying as well as selling of
goods and services. More literate and educated consumers are entering the market, the
requirement of analyzing the pulse and tastes of the consumers are occurring day by day.
This report will be based on the analysis of a well-known fashion company named Marks &
Spencer headquartered in London, United Kingdom. In case the selection of this organization
does go well with the report, the second choice would be Greenwoods which is headquartered in
England, United Kingdom.
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2. From your intrinsic knowledge of the business world, identify some of the macro-
environmental factors that are or will have an impact on fashion retail.
Macro Environmental factor affecting the fashion industry:
Consumer Factors
These factors include norms, cultures, demographics, population growth and lifestyle changes.
The clothing industry gets affected by these factors in a different manner. For example, a small
manufacturer of the clothing industry has to create styles that can attract consumers from
different cultures. In addition to this, the manufacturers' retailers and wholesalers do not prefer to
create a number of clothing items that are not falling under the norms of society. Most of the
individuals tend to become more sedentary during the age of 40-50. Further, decreasing birth
rates can also cause in lowering the demand for baby and maternity clothes in some areas.
Technological Factors
These factors include the availability of the resources, production, and demand. For example, the
non-availability of some resources may result in forcing the wholesale and retail industry to
manufacture substitute and leather products. The retailer may take advantage by increasing the
prices of cotton fabric if they face difficulty due to the shortage of raw material.
Legal and Political Factors
The fashion industry is getting affected by the issues related to the workers such as labor union
laws, child labor, worker legislation and so on which are different from country to country. The
union workers of the clothing manufacturing industry can create hurdles is they face medical and
wage-related issues (Bertram and Chi, 2018).
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3. From your intrinsic knowledge of the business world, identify some of the
microenvironmental factors that are or will have an impact on fashion retail
Micro-environmental Factors
Availability of Human Resources:
The availability of the experienced, perfect and qualified employees plays a vital role in the
fashion retail industry. The manufacturers have to pay a high amount of salary to professional
designers to design attractive and profitable outfits.
Competition level:
The competition level of the industry also has a great impact on the fashion retail industry.
Existence of more competitors results in sharing of customers as well as the profits. However, it
also indicates a large number of customers and the availability of demand in the long run.
Investors availability:
The investors and shareholders may help the organization to develop and expand the business.
Investors are always better than creditors as taking loans from creditors results in repaying a
large amount of interest as the return (Macchion et al., 2017).
4. From the information and knowledge that you have already, try and identify
theories/ideas/concepts that could be useful and or used.
The main dimensions and theories of the retail fashion industry
 Customer Relationship Management
 Online and Virtual Shopping
 Monitoring, Measurement, and Control
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5. Resources that you will be or could be consulting in your planning and writing of
the report.
Resources to be used for planning and writing the report
The resources include d tails of the selected organization, current market conditions of the
fashion retail industry, goals and objective of the company, marketing strategies of the
organization and the reputation among the society and customers.
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References
 Bertram, R.F. and Chi, T., 2018. A study of companies’ business responses to fashion e-
commerce’s environmental impact. International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology
and Education, 11(2), pp.254-264.
 Macchion, L., Moretto, A., Caniato, F., Caridi, M., Danese, P., Spina, G. and Vinelli, A.,
2017. Improving innovation performance through environmental practices in the fashion
industry: the moderating effect of internationalisation and the influence of
collaboration. Production Planning & Control, 28(3), pp.190-201.
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