Marketing of Fashion: Charles & Keith's Strategy for Thailand Market

This report examines Charles & Keith's marketing strategy for entering the fashion market of Thailand, specifically targeting Bangkok. The report begins by outlining the company's objectives, which include targeting the upper-class customer segment with premium fashion accessories like shoes, bags, and jewelry, while leveraging fashion shows and magazines for promotion. The target market is identified as the competitive Thai market, with a focus on Bangkok as the fashion capital, and secondary markets in neighboring Asian countries. The report then delves into market positioning, suggesting Charles & Keith should position itself as a manufacturer of premium, environment-friendly fashion statements, potentially collaborating with designers at events like Bangkok Fashion Week. The marketing mix is analyzed, focusing on the product line (shoes, bags, and accessories), pricing strategy (skimming), physical and digital presence, and promotional activities. The report references several sources to support its analysis.

Running head: MARKETING OF FASHION
Charles & Keith enters Thailand
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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MARKETING OF FASHION
Selected Marketing Objectives:
Objectives:
The objective of Charles & Keith is to enter the market of Thailand, especially its
political and fashion capital, Bangkok. The market of Thailand has a high demand for
premium fashion accessories like shoes, bags and jewellery. The aim of Charles & Keith is to
target the upper class customers in the country and offer fashion products to cater to their
fashion needs. Moreover, it would be able to promote its products at fashion shows and on
fashion magazines in Thailand. This would enable the company to gain strong foothold in
the Asian fashion market and earn robust profit (charleskeith.com, 2017).
Target markets:
The primary target market of Charles & Keith would be the highly competitive
market of Thailand. The fashion company particularly wishes to get a strong position in
Bangkok, the fashion capital of the country which would enable to gain access to the upper
class fashion loving customer segment. The market of Asia is experiencing increase in
demand for fashion brands and already experiences presence of big brands like Zara, the
Spanish fashion brand (Sabel & Johansson, 2016).
The secondary target market of Charles & Keith consists of the important markets in
Asia outside Thailand. Thailand is situated very close to the main fashion markets in Asia
like China, Singapore, Malaysia and India. Thus, gaining a strong foothold in Thailand would
allow the company to dominate these markets and earn huge revenue in these markets
(Stremlau & Tao, 2016).

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MARKETING OF FASHION
Market positioning:
Charles & Keith should position itself in the Thai market as the manufacturer and
marketer of premium fashionable shoes, bags and accessories. The company should position
itself as a manufacturer of wearable products made from environment friendly raw materials.
Charles & Keith must also position its products as fashion statements to attract the rich
customers by participating in the prestigious fashion show in Asia like Bangkok Fashion
Week. This would provide the designer to collaborate with the leading fashion designers from
other fashion markets like India. This would allow Charles & Keith establish itself as an Pan
Asian designer with power to cater to the fashion needs of people of several countries
simultaneously (Taplin, 2014).
Market mix:
The following is the marketing mix of Charles & Keith is as follows:
Product:
The products of Charles & Keith consist of shoes, bags and accessories. The product
line does not contain apparel products and they do not cater to the men segments. This limits
the opportunity of Charles & Keith to compete with the international fashion brands like Zara
who have strong presence in Asia including Thailand.
Pricing:
Charles & Keith should use skimming pricing to establish itself as a premium fashion
company. The per capita GDP of Thailand has risen above USD 5901 in 2016, which means
that the people in Thailand have more disposable to buy premium accessories. This enables
the brand to cater to more customers and earn higher profits (Gabrielli, Baghi & Codeluppi,
2013).

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MARKETING OF FASHION
Place:
Charles & Keith has a strong physical and digital presence. The fashion maker has
stores in all the important Asian markets like Thailand, Singapore and Taiwan. The store
receives order online from all over the world and allows facilities like order tracking (Sabel
& Johansson, 2016).
Promotion:
Charles & Keith promotes its products online on its official websites and on fashion
magazines and newspapers. The fashion house also showcases its products at international
fashion shows which helps it promote its premium collections (M. Taplin, 2014).

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MARKETING OF FASHION
References:
Gabrielli, V., Baghi, I., & Codeluppi, V. (2013). Consumption practices of fast fashion
products: a consumer-based approach. Journal of Fashion Marketing and
Management: An International Journal, 17(2), 206-224.
M. Taplin, I. (2014). Who is to blame? A re-examination of fast fashion after the 2013
factory disaster in Bangladesh. critical perspectives on international business, 10(1/2),
72-83.
MAN | ZARA India. (2017). Zara.com. Retrieved 19 November 2017, from
https://www.zara.com/in/en/man-l534.html?v1=977068
Sabel, J., & Johansson, U. (2016). Being Green and Global-: A qualitative study of
sustainable Swedish fashion companies and their environmental work connected to
internationalization.
Shop Women's Shoes Online - Heels & More | CHARLES & KEITH. (2017).
Charleskeith.com. Retrieved 19 November 2017, from
http://www.charleskeith.com/in/shoes
Stremlau, K., & Tao, J. (2016). Green Supply Chain Management Enablers and Barriers in
Textile Supply Chains: What factors enable or aggravate the implementation of a
GSCM strategy for textile and fashion companies.