Evaluating Sales & Merchandising: A Case Study of New Look Fashion

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of New Look's sales and merchandising strategies, examining the company's background, brand positioning, and international branding efforts. It delves into how New Look creates and delivers customer value, evaluates customer satisfaction and loyalty, and analyzes product range management and pricing strategies. The report also discusses store location, supply chain management, and visual merchandising, offering advice on improvements. Key aspects covered include New Look's push promotional strategy, cost-friendly product positioning, and commitment to quality. The analysis highlights New Look's focus on customer emotions, responsiveness to market trends, and innovation in sustainable design and supply chain practices, aiming to deliver a positive customer experience and maintain a competitive edge in the fashion industry.

Running Head: SALES AND MERCHANDIZING
`Sales and Merchandizing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Discussion........................................................................................................................................5
Company background..............................................................................................................5
Analysis of the brand...............................................................................................................6
Their Advertisement................................................................................................................6
Sales promotion strategy of the company................................................................................7
The brand positioning..............................................................................................................8
The creation and delivery of customers’ value........................................................................8
The supply chain......................................................................................................................9
Innovation in the brand..........................................................................................................10
Levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty...........................................................................10
Measurement of Customer satisfaction.................................................................................11
The product range management.............................................................................................12
The pricing strategy...............................................................................................................12
Effects on positioning and branding......................................................................................13
The stores location strategy...................................................................................................13
The stock management strategy.............................................................................................14

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Visual Merchandising and store design.................................................................................14
The product management......................................................................................................14
Advice on improvement........................................................................................................15
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
Reference.......................................................................................................................................16

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Introduction
The sales and merchandizing are two of the most important components for the business
organizations. In the highly competitive industry, the merchandizing of the product or the
services a particular company is offering to the customers has to be proper in order to increase
the sales rates. Merchandizing is everything a company does to promote the sales while the
potential customer is in store (Abbott et al. 2017). There are many ways by which the
entrepreneurs attract the attention of the customers and entice them to have a try at the product
(Benson and Magee 2018). These are the window and in-store displays, the shelf signage,
grouping related products together, sample and giveaways, well-stocked shelves, in-store
demonstration, spotlighting the promotional items and many others.
However, it has to be kept in mind that the merchandizing is above moving the inventory
around. An effective process of merchandizing results in more satisfied customers, faster
inventory turnover, buyers spending more time in the retail store and increases the customer
loyalty. When an organization presents the products which are looked for by the customers
frequently, more customers are incurred on a regular basis (Hora, Bouwma-Gearhart and Park
2017). I have studied sales and merchandizing representatives can operate for the wholesale
business, technical companies and the manufacturers. There are a good range of educational and
career option for the sakes and merchandizing experts. They experts can easily work for the retail
establishment on the sales floor, for the retail management positions and the retail manufacturers.
The purpose of the report is to deal with the New Look fashion brand in the context of Dubai and
its merchandizing and sales strategies. The report will cover an academically underpinned

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analysis and evaluation of the current merchandising decisions of the chosen retailer and
advise on the improvement of all above mentioned points. It will further demonstrate the
international branding and positioning efforts of the company along with discussing the location
strategy, the positioning , the merchandizing store design and many related areas and conclude
with summing up the main findings.
Discussion
Company background
It is a fashion brand that began in the year 1969 in the UK. Since its beginning the
company has grown up to be one of the leading fashion brands with almost 593 stores across the
UK and 302 across the entire Europe, Asia and China. The company serves more than 66
countries worldwide. In China, the company has acquired 870,000 fans and there are 5 million
followers on social media. The company aims at bringing the latest trends at the door of the
customers (Newlook.com 2019). Suppliers from all over the world are sourced to make the best
out of the opportunities and satisfy the customers with whatever they want. The brand is famous
for keeping the exclusive range of apparels for both men and women. The individual style of the
potential customers and followed properly and they are offered the trendiest look ever. They are
accessible for all irrespective of age, color, height and size. This is the primary reason behind
their customer loyalty.
The mission of the company is to keep the expectations of the company at the heart of
their operations and value their choices. They communicate with the customers about and
beyond the clothes and they are connected emotionally with the brand once they experience it.
They keep on listening to the queries of the customers to ensure what exactly is wanted by them.

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The vision of the New Look brand is to become the “chosen brand for an inspiring accessible
fashion experience”. Their way of operating is simple which consists of being brave, thinking
like the customers, acting with peace and taking the responsibility to deliver what they promised.
The company possesses few key people who are the foundation of its rapid growth. Mr. Alistair
McGeorge is the executive chairmen of the company(Newlook.com 2019). Richard Collyer is
the CFO and Roger Wightmen is the Chief product office. I have chosen this brand in the United
Arab Emirates context to prepare a base for the understanding of what is sales and
merchandising and through more light on the steps to function in this field properly.
Analysis of the brand
The brand is preferred by the customers because they value the emotions that is
connected with the buying behavior of the customers. The customer oriented operations are the
key to their success. Before launching new products, they take the consent of the customers by
their social media site where they provide a preview of the product and know the customer
interests (Marsh and Farrell 2015). The brand is more responsive in addressing the current
market trends and demands. The customers are also helped by the designers of the fashion brand
in determining what suits them the best. The online site of the company uploads almost 800
product pictures every week that attracts the customer to visit the website for several times. They
are passionate about what they promise and do and have fun while accomplishing their promises
(Rejikumar, Aswathy Asokan and Sreedharan 2018). Through all their operations starting with
maintaining the store environment, the behavior and service of their people, social media
marketing they ensure that they are delivering not only clothes, they are delivering a good feeling
to the customers.

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Their Advertisement
The advertisement of the company is done through both the offline and online techniques.
In terms of online advertisements, the company has its own domain and website with SEO
ranking. The website contains descriptive titles, the site is easily crawlable, there is a lot of
updating contents along with good links. The company has soaring social media presence and
executives are always present to handle the customer queries and issues (Vladimirova et al.
2017). As far as the offline marketing or merchandizing is concerned, the company is active in
spreading the brand name through magazines, newspapers, hoardings billboards and television
advertisements. They have their own customer segmenting techniques and the advertisements are
also targeted addressing the different communities they have in their customer list (Zendzian,
Carter and Jone 2017).They have a monthly investment system on the advertisement of their
latest offers and discounts so that the potential customers get to know about it.
Sales promotion strategy of the company
The company employs the ‘push’ strategy for the sales promotion. The push promotional
strategy utilizes the sake force of the company along with the trade promotion activities. This
helps to create the customer demand for a particular product. The company through this strategy
convinces the contemporary channel members in order to push the products by the distribution
channels or the retail shops to reach the ultimate end users (Zendzian, Carter and Jones 2017). It
also consists of the personal selling efforts and the promotions. The company supports the
product to reach the target customers. In short, the brand promotes the product to the wholesalers
and the wholesalers convince the retailers to incorporate the brand in their shop. The brand is
pushed to the end customers through buy –back, allowances, free trials, specialty advertising,

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displays, premiums, contests and discounts. This strategy is low cost strategy and provides space
for the company to benefit from it.
Image – Push and pull strategy
Source - (Murphy et al. 2015)
The brand positioning
In the marketing or merchandising, the positioning of the brand is highly important by
which the customers receive an image or identity of the rand they are selecting. It can be sad to
be at the heart of the marketing strategy. The company’s offers and image is designed to be
infused in the minds of the distinct target customers. It clarifies what the brand is about, how it is
similar to the competitive brand and how it is unique in the market. Moreover, it justifies the
reason if the customers’ selection of the brand (Murphy et al. 2015). The company positions its
products by being cist –friendly and presenting to the customers about the attributes and benefits
of the product. It contains the brand that sets them apart from the market competitors. The
seasonal discounts that the company offers to the customers helps the company to retain their
customers. However, although the pricing is important, the company is able to maintain the

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quality standards too. They try to provide the best possible quality product at the low prices.
They do not promote through events.
The creation and delivery of customers’ value
The success of a brand lies in its ability to create and deliver what has been promised to
the customers. When the customers become satisfied with the quality, time and price of the
product delivered, the possibility of their visiting and recommending the brand to others is
increased to greater extent. The process of creating the product and delivering it to the end users
is a story that starts with the supply chain of the company, their innovation, manufacturing and
delivery of the product in affordable prices maintaining the quality standards at the same time.
The supply chain
The supply chain of the company stats with sourcing the raw materials, the establishment
and maintenance of the factories where the raw materials into garments and the distribution of
the product through the networks to deceiver to the customers. However, it is a rough outline of
the company’s supply chain. There are few specifications in it.
 In the design stage, this company holds reputation in discarding the old styles for the new
trendy thing by selecting fabrics, silhouettes in perfection and the skeleton of the finish
product has been established. This company also keep in mind Responsible designing.
New Look considers to types of Cycles in Responsible designing:
a. Industrial Cycle: Non-degradable materials are recycled.
b. Biological Cycle: The Fabrics will be degradable and will not cause any harm to the
nature.

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 In the material production stage the raw textile materials are sun into a fibre and weaved
into a fabric. The textile production is a great contributor to the environmental pollution
as the greenhouse gas emission contaminates the air along with the water supplies.
 In the clothing production stage, the cutting and sewing of the material is done properly.
 After going through all these stages, the distribution and retailing of the product is done.
As the clothes are manufactured, the company transports them to the global retailers and
the international consumers. The huge transportation of the clothes might increase the
level of carbon footprints. The New Look company is focusing on reducing the carbon
emission rates and becoming sustainable in the market.
 The company achieves the fast and cheap delivery of the products to the customer by
using the mobile app that records the customer data and their address too. The logistics is
primarily done by the shipment of the products to various parts of the world. The last
sage is the consumer phase where the product is reached to the customers, the garment is
laundered and product use comes to an end.
Innovation in the brand
The New Look brand has the fast –fashion concepts since its beginning. The company
quickly responds to the changing trend in the market having used the agile supply chain. The
supply chain of the company starts from the designing process to the product reaching its stores.
The supply chain of a product in the company is swift and takes almost three weeks. The rapid
use of technology in the company has reduced the workforce labor and has increased the
production rates with finer quality (Bumblauskas et al. 2016). The company is primarily aimed at
providing the best possible trend to the people especially their maternity wears are a sign of
innovation sought for by the women. The feedbacks of the customers are collected through their

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online and offline channels and utilized to the best practices paving way for innovation. The fibre
materials used in the clothing are high quality and imported from the best parts of the world. It
accentuates their possibility to fulfill the promise to provide style with comfort to the customers.
Levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty
The customer loyalty programs are a type of marketing tool which is used by most of the
business organizations to inspire the customers to stay connected by offering some reward
systems. The prevalence of customer loyalty programs in the large market of U.S have enabled
the firms to gain the competitive advantage over the market rivals. The firs get profited as by the
customer loyalty programs, their brand name is recommended to others. Those recipients of the
loyalty rewards refer twice at-least to new customers. The customer loyalty programs are also
known as the customer reward programs, loyalty incentive programs, frequent shopper’s
programs, customer satisfaction programs and many others. The New Look fashion brand
nominate the maximum buying customers and rewards them according the time they have stayed
connected to the company.
Measurement of Customer satisfaction
The measurement of customer satisfaction is difficult due to certain reasons. It has been
found that few people prefer to stay silent even after they have been satisfied by the product or
services of a particular company. Some type of people is also there who do not feel the need to
contact the service provider. However, the New Look brand measures the level of customer
satisfaction through so many ways.
 The company uses the survey method to know the likes and dislikes of the customers
either through the emails or the phone calls. The surveys are conducted on regular

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intervals so evaluate the changing customer behaviors. Through the surveys they try to
understand the customer expectations grounded on which they can modify their products.
 The customer loyalty is measured by keeping in track the number of recommended
customers. These customers have been recommended by few of the existing customers.
There are also upgraded software to keep track of the number of repurchasing from the
stores.
 They also measure the future hypothetical behavior of the customers which indicates that
the repurchasing of a product means the customer is satisfied. The monitoring of
everything is done through email, chat, phone and other ways of communication. The
card systems are also used to gauge then customer comments.
The product range management
The product range of a company is the segment of products that it offers. Under the
single brand there can be many types of products sold. Companies are responsible for selling
products variety to satiate the different demands of the customers. There are instances too where
a company is seen to be adding extra offerings to the existing product line. The New Look
fashion brand is famous for selling attractive fashion attires for both men and women (Asl-
Najafi, Yaghoubi and Azaron 2018). Their special collection is suitable apparels for the pregnant
women. The pregnant women feel uncomfortable in any kind of dresses. Hence, New Look has
utilized this gap and brought about an exclusive fashion ideal for those women. Apart from
attires, the company has recently started with the children’s clothes as well. The product range of
the company is managed by the managed by the product line manager. The product range of the
company is managed sincerely because it is the complete portfolio of the products the company
offers to different market segments.