Retail Theory and Practice: Next Plc's Challenges, Strategies Report

This report provides an analysis of the challenges faced by Next Plc, a major fashion retailer based in the UK. The report begins with an overview of the key issues, including increased competition, the impact of Brexit on sales and import duties, and economic issues affecting the UK market. It examines the impact of Brexit on supply chain issues and consumer demand. The report then outlines the structure of the report, including the introduction, main body, conclusion, and references. The main body of the report will explore the changes in the UK fashion clothing market and the strategies and tactics that Next Plc can use to respond to these challenges. The report concludes by summarizing the findings and providing a list of references used in the research.

Retail Theory and
Practice (Formative
report)

Table of Contents
1) Key issues of fashion retailer covered in project....................................................................3
2) Key source or references that will be used.............................................................................4
3) Structure of report...................................................................................................................4

1) Key issues of fashion retailer covered in project
Fashion retailers are the one which are specialised in offering trending clothing and
accessories related product to target market. The fashion retail industry is one of the most
competitive and dynamic sector which creates number of issues for the players who are working
within it. So, in order to study those issue a well known fashion retail brand has been chosen for
the project named as 'Next Plc' which is headquartered in England, UK and variety of products in
footwear, clothing and other fashion accessories. Following are some issues which Next Plc is
facing as the changes get anticipated within the retail industry:
 Major issue faced by Next is company usually fails to enhance its sales volume as the
competition is relatively higher within the market and customers have various other
options to opt for their expectation related to fashion clothing.
 Brexit brings an additional risk for Next as when goods sold online and shipped from UK
to any other country of European Union, customers have to pay duty on selling price for
the goods purchased rather then their cost price.
 Next is facing economical issues within UK in which good from Asian countries usually
covered by 53% of stock remains unaffected as goods non-EU country not get covered in
GSP deal.
 Another major issue faced by Next is that Demand for the product is more then its supply
because of political and economical affairs between EU and UK government after Brexit.
This delay is usually faced by company while import-export activities over the UK and
EU ports as governments keep on increasing the inflation rate for such operations and as
a result which customer declaration for other countries get increased.
2) Key source or references that will be used
Demand, not supply, is Next’s biggest Brexit threat. 2019. [Online] Available
through<https://www.retail-insight-network.com/comment/demand-not-supply-nexts-
biggest-brexit-threat/>./
Next has set up a German operation. 2018. [Online] Available
through<https://readyforbrexit.co.uk/retailer-next-warns-of-cost-to-business-of-no-deal-
brexit-and-has-some-pointers-for-government/>./

Next still facing UK retail challenges amid weak consumer demand, analysts caution. 2019.
[Online] Available
through<https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/183994/next-still-
facing-uk-retail-challenges-amid-weak-consumer-demand-analysts-caution-
183994.html>./
3) Structure of report
Following is the structure of report which is used to cover this assignment:
 Introduction:- This section contains the overview of whole project as well as the topic of
concern. In this first of all main topic that is retail theory and practices will be discussed
and then there will a detail elaboration about the content that will be covered within the
report.
 Main body:- This section is the main part of the report which cover up all the task that
has been asked in brief. It first describe about the changes that are now a days
experiencing within UK fashion clothing market along with the challenges faced by
company in retail industry. After this another section contains a explanation of various
types of strategies and tactics that can be used by retailer for responding to the major
changes as well as issues that a company is facing within fashion clothing market.
 Conclusion:- This section contains an information regarding the finding of whole report
or the things which are concluded after going through the whole project research as well
as implementation.
 References:- In this section sources will be enlisted through which information has been
collected in order to conduct this project. This help in authenticate the report by
providing a link to that information source.