Business Plan: Retail Clothing and Shoes Store in Melbourne, Australia

This business plan outlines the key components for establishing a retail clothing and shoes store in Melbourne, Australia. It begins with an overview of the retail industry, employment conditions, and the products and services offered. The plan then delves into risk management, legal considerations, and operational aspects, including inventory management, marketing strategies, and financial planning. A significant portion is dedicated to market analysis, including market research, demographics, target customers, and environmental analysis. The plan also incorporates a SWOT analysis, competitor analysis, and advertising and sales strategies. Financial objectives and reviews are included, providing a comprehensive framework for the business's success. The plan emphasizes the importance of adapting to changing market trends, particularly the growth of e-commerce and the need for multichannel retail strategies to thrive in a competitive landscape.

RUNNING HEAD: BUSINESS PLAN 1
BUSINESS PLAN
Student Name
Institute Name

BUSINESS PLAN 2
Contents
The business.....................................................................................................................................3
Recruitment and Employment conditions....................................................................................3
Products/services..........................................................................................................................4
Risk management.........................................................................................................................4
Legal considerations and Customs...............................................................................................5
Operations....................................................................................................................................5
Market..............................................................................................................................................6
Market research/ market demographics.......................................................................................6
Market targets and our customers................................................................................................8
Environmental/industry analysis..................................................................................................8
S.W.O.T. analysis........................................................................................................................9
Our competitors..........................................................................................................................10
Advertising & sales....................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................18

BUSINESS PLAN 3
The business
Recruitment and Employment conditions
The retail industry in the Melbourne Australia is employing millions of people since the industry
is booming. The biggest occupational sectors are in sales department which can be accounted as
one third of employment across the whole industry. The age profile taken into consideration in
clothing and shoes business is young and almost three quarter of employees is aged below 45
years and more than twenty-four years and even younger. The age profile also changed majorly
across varied occupations with young workforce clustered in role of sales and older employees in
roles of management. The industry helps many young people who wanting to start early and
with their first job and gaining all the right tools to gains the right skills that can be sought highly
after other sectors. The experience obviously helps them build skills in customer services,
communication, and management of warehouse for garments in various sectors and shoes and
conflict resolution. As per the statistics, 56% of retail workers that are women and forty nine
percent people are part of this industry as part time. In addition, the overall proposition varies a
lot across the industries and subsectors.1 The industry currently can be featured by relatively
high percentage of employment which is by thirty eight percent. Different kind of job structures
are offered like part time or arrangement to work casually with the flexibility for the managers
that can seek to also adjust fluctuations in demand. 2 For number of workers, the overall
1 Whyte, Garrett Bromley. "The relationship between sustainable supply chains and economic success in
the retail clothing industry in South Africa." PhD diss., 2016.
2 Thompson, John, and Carolan McLarney. "What Effects will the Strategy Changes Undertaken by Next
Plc Have on themselves and their Competition in the UK Clothing Retail Market?." Journal of Commerce

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opportunity to earn money during the transition in work life is quite attractive. Families
specifically who are part of regional areas, the second source of income is provided by this part
time as well as causal work helps in boosting the income of household. Data analysis from the
perspective of household, labor and income based dynamics in the country like Australia is based
on longitudinal survey that can show many kinds of causal work in the country for long duration
in regular working hours.
Products/services
The retail business in garments and shoes sector is normally defined as a when businesses can
engage in purchasing or selling of goods to the public without any major changes. It consists of
commission or middle men based selling and buying of good. The industry is diverse and covers
a lot of business types, clothing and shoes is business is one of them. 3The products can be sold
through different channels covering the traditional stores to mail based order and e-commerce.
Internationally, the sector has been at forefront of lots of creativity and innovations not just in
design and fashion but also in introduction of advanced technologies or adopting new practices.
In last many years, the country has seen shops moving from the concept of corner stores to
and Management Thought8, no. 2 (2017): 234.
3 Oxborrow, L., Helen Goworek, S. Claxton, T. H. Cooper, H. Hill, and A. McLaren. "Managing
sustainability in the fashion business: exploring challenges in product development for clothing longevity."
In 2017 Global Fashion Management Conference at Vienna, pp. 376-381. 2017.

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departmental store to than shopping centers and on e-commerce portals with varied electronic
payment tools and promotion on social media. 4
Risk management
Constant development in technology is helping the economy as well as society to understand that
clothing business in retail formal with keep evolving, drive as per the current demand in fashion
and the highly skilled staff. Risk management means, that business will have to stay prepared for
any kind of big transformation which is inevitable and the organization will have to act as per the
trend only. Significant transformation in the industry which covers the impact of constantly
evolving technology when combined with changed expectations of consumers and attitude. The
business will have to embrace all the change in a manner that it becomes revenue generating tool
for them.
Legal considerations and Customs
There are three important government agencies which is part of regulation of the corporation in
Melbourne, Australia: -
1. The ASIC also called as Australian Securities & Investments Commission supervises the
national act of corporation in 2001 and enforced the organization as well as financial
based services laws to save customers, creditors and investors.5
4 Armstrong, Cosette M., Kirsi Niinimäki, Chunmin Lang, and Sari Kujala. "A Use‐Oriented Clothing
Economy? Preliminary Affirmation for Sustainable Clothing Consumption Alternatives." Sustainable
Development 24, no. 1 (2016): 18-31.
5 White, Candace L., Anne Ellerup Nielsen, and Chiara Valentini. "CSR research in the apparel industry:
A quantitative and qualitative review of existing literature." Corporate Social Responsibility and

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2. The ACCC also called as Australian Competition & Consumer Commission also
supervises the competition as well as consumer act 2010 and look to save the customers
and promote the fair trading as well as competition in commerce as well as trade.
3. The APRA also called as Australian Prudential Regulation Authority that can regulate the
management in prudent manner based on depositing taking organization like insurance
companies and large funds for superannuation.
The Australian Custom based services also regulate all kind good that can be imported into the
country. Customs based duty as well as Good and Service Tax also called as GST that can apply
to good while entering Australia. But the rate of tax can depend on number of other factors that
also include the kind of goods and the origin country.
Operations
Following are the crucial steps taken as a part of operations: -
1. Inventory: getting the inventory for the clothing and shoes stores is by far the biggest part
of expense of the organization. 6Without enough inventories, level of revenue cannot be
reached. Instead of selecting an arbitrary number to maintain inventor, the store must
research well for the inventory level of competition along with right floor space and with
right profit margins present in the clothing lines. The founder must also consider the
Environmental Management (2017).
6 Gehrke, Germano Adolfo, Hoyêdo Nunes Lins, and José Alonso Borba. "Hering, from a Global
Production Network Player to a Regional Retail Leader." In The Challenge of Bric Multinationals, pp. 295-
315. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2017.

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discounts that can require providing at the end for the season to move inventory therefore
it results in lower level of profit margin. 7
2. Marketing: the marketing department of the plan will discuss about the marketing plan
for the business, which happen to include how to get some recognition within the current
marketplace. While opening a clothing store, this consists of traditional level of
advertising which include print and visual medium. Moreover, the store can also team up
with civic companies in the community who have the target market of stores.
3. Finance: the finance department of the plan in operation will consist of the business
financial statement consisting of cash flow statement, income statement along with
balance sheet. In case of new clothing business, this section will consist of all the
projected money or estimations.
Market
Market research/ market demographics
The research shows that in one month of time, there are approximately eleven million Australian
within the age group of fifteen and more at least buy one piece of shoes or clothing. 8 The studies
7 Gehrke, Germano Adolfo, Hoyêdo Nunes Lins, and José Alonso Borba. "Hering, from a Global
Production Network Player to a Regional Retail Leader." In The Challenge of Bric Multinationals, pp. 295-
315. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2017.
8 Peters, Cara, and Jane Thomas. "Dr. Shopping, Her Business Partner, and the New Retail Store
Experience." Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies 23, no. 1 (2017): 30.

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also show that in Australia, one quarter which is twenty three percent purchases something or
other at Kmart which makes this company one of ten most popular retailers in garment segment.
There are other organizations like Target as well Big W and Myer that has heavy customer
traffic. Clothing and shoes in various segment like casual, sports and many more are something
which will never go out of fashion ever.
The stores mentioned in the graphs are among the six most popular retailers with large share of
total dollars spent on clothing at an average of four weeks. 9But the noticeable difference is in
the ranking where Myer accounted as the largest share of dollar in the market ahead of Target,
Kmart as well as Big W.
9 Liotino, Karine, Marilia Carvalhinha, João Amato, Paulo Tromboni, and Abrahan Yu. "Dynamic
capabilities and business model: An analysis of radical innovation inside midsized and large companies in
Brazil." In Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), 2016 Portland International
Conference on, pp. 1257-1263. IEEE, 2016.

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Market targets and our customers
It is important to understand here, that the plan is for fashion industry which is primarily an
expression of association and there are so many groups of people that responds completely
differently manner to diverse styles. 10The retail store will have to understand the demand among
different age group and see that which group they can serve best. Defining a target market is the
key to overall success in clothing and shoes segment whether the organization is operating
locally or online. A well-defined target market can recognize the consumers based on varied
demographics like age, income and geographic consideration based on the weather and local
style along with psychographic features like social affiliations. 11The company will have to spend
10 Islam, Rashedul. "Digital transformation of retail industries: Case in clothing industries." (2016).
11 Halpern, Marcelo, and Anthony Kent. "Ann Petermans holds a PhD in Architecture and is affiliated to
the Faculty of Archi-tecture and Arts of Hasselt University (Belgium). Her PhD focused on the translation
and investigation of the principles and practices of the ‘experience economy’within the discipline of interior

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a good deal of time in working out a comprehensive level of definition of the current target
market since this step will also impact the overall decisions in long run.
Environmental/industry analysis
As discussed, at an average of one month time, one in four people in Australia above the age of
fourteen purchases from clothing or a shoe store which makes it more than five million people,
however, the main question is number of people satisfied with the shopping experience is
different matter. Each shopper understands that the standard of services can vary in a dramatic
manner which exists between the retailers as well as the Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction
Awards as revealed about how to impact on customer satisfaction levels. 12The level of
satisfaction is impressive and rated at 92%. The graph shows the detailed discussion.
architecture in general, and retail design in particular. In her PhD, she investigated what ‘experiences’ in
retail environments entail, and which research." Retail Design: Theoretical Perspectives (2016): 227.
12 Larson, Andrea, Andrea Larson, Andrea Larson, and Andrea Larson. "Method: Entrepreneurial
Innovation, Health, Environment, and Sustainable Business Design." Darden Business Publishing
Cases (2017): 1-7.

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The graph also discusses about the shoes purchase among various segments.
S.W.O.T. analysis
Strength: for the retail companies, the strength is mainly the financial balancing with plenty of
capital and the access to the bank loans. 13There are retailers who have the cheap wholesale
prices as well, where they tend to offer unique products which are compared to the other
retailers.
Weakness: It is related to the market research where the retailers also discover about the weak
brand image in comparison to the key competitors. The retailers also lose the sense of identity
where the store tends to sell the cheap and the expensive brands. There is a major lack of the
13 Bocken, Nancy, Karen Miller, and Steve Evans. "Assessing the environmental impact of new Circular
business models." In Conference proceedings Conference “New Business Models”–Exploring a changing
view on organizing value creation, p. 17. 2016.

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customer service with no compeititve advantage that sets it apart completely from the other
retailers. There are retailers focus on the identity with the retailer working on the improvement.
Opportunities: With the SWOT analysis, the identification is based on the retailer who tends to
discover the sales forces and the market research. The opportunities are including the consumer
needs and the online business reference.
Threats: It includes the issues of the consumer demands, with the recession, pricing and the war
of the prices. There is an increase of the competition with the change in the habits of shopping.
Our competitors
The fashion industry of the country, Melbourne is going through a lot of transformations with the
entry of many global players. The online shopping is quickly gaining a lot of popularity with
great demand for fast paced fashion and it forces retailers to forecast and rapidly adapt to global
fashion based trends. 14In past five years, e-commerce has developed at exponential rate which is
an outcome of Australian customers becoming highly confident with advent of e-commerce.
Footwear and clothing in various segments are accounted for more than twenty percent of
purchase made on online platforms. The competition in Australian market specifically in
Melbourne is anticipated to go intense since candidates usually fight for the customer dollar.
The participants in industry will also require growing a strong multichannel retail based
strategies and position the store in niche market to flourish in the current competitive culture.
14 Giacosa, Elisa. "The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the
Clothing Luxury Business." In Sustainable Management of Luxury, pp. 361-385. Springer Singapore,
2017.