Detailed Retail Marketing Report: The Iconic's Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of The Iconic, a leading Australian fashion retailer. It begins with an executive summary and covers various aspects of the company, including its history, mission, target market, market positioning, and competitive advantages. The report delves into the fashion e-commerce retail industry, examining factors affecting the retailer and industry changes. It outlines The Iconic's retail marketing strategy, including retail format, location, retail mix, pricing strategy, CRM, communication mix, store design, customer service, and visual merchandising. The report also assesses The Iconic's website design, layout, and visual merchandising, comparing it to competitors. It provides recommendations for retail strategy, future growth opportunities, and design and styling, concluding with a summary of key findings and references.

Running Head: Retail Marketing
Retail Marketing

Retail Marketing 1
Executive summary
In the report, there is a description about The Iconic retailer, the retailer deals in clothing and
shoes of men and women's. The retailer is based in Australia which is one of the leading fashion
retailers. The different aspects of the company are discussed starting from History ending with
the recommendations. The target market of the retailer gets affected with the change in the
atmosphere of the Australia. The report shows the retail marketing strategy applied by the Iconic,
to register a good position in the market. The description in context to the website, its physical
appearance, design, and layout is shared in the report.

Retail Marketing 2
Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................1
History of the company...................................................................................................................4
Mission and vision.......................................................................................................................4
Target Market..................................................................................................................................4
Market positioning...........................................................................................................................5
Competitors and competitive advantage..........................................................................................5
Fashion e-commerce retail industry.................................................................................................6
Factors affecting the retailer........................................................................................................7
Changes in industry.....................................................................................................................7
Retail marketing strategy.................................................................................................................8
Retail format................................................................................................................................8
Location and accessibility............................................................................................................8
Retail mix.....................................................................................................................................8
Pricing strategy............................................................................................................................9
CRM or customer loyalty program............................................................................................10
Communication Mix..................................................................................................................10
Physical bricks and mortar store....................................................................................................11
Store design...............................................................................................................................12
Customer service.......................................................................................................................12

Retail Marketing 3
Visual Merchandising................................................................................................................12
Website..........................................................................................................................................14
Design, layout and the Visual Merchandising...........................................................................14
Benchmark against the two main competitor’s websites...........................................................17
Mobile........................................................................................................................................18
Recommendation and conclusion..................................................................................................18
Retail strategy for retailer..........................................................................................................18
Future of retailer........................................................................................................................18
Growth opportunities.................................................................................................................19
Design and styling.....................................................................................................................19
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................20
References......................................................................................................................................21
Appendix........................................................................................................................................25
Appendix 1.1..............................................................................................................................25
Appendix 1.2..............................................................................................................................25
Appendix 1.3..............................................................................................................................25

Retail Marketing 4
History of the company
The Iconic was established in 2011 and was based in Sydney, Australia. The company is one of
the largest fashion retailers that access to 700 local and international brands. The company
launches more than 200 new products on daily basis to make the customer feel that they are
getting the latest styles. The team of the company is working hard to deliver the product as soon
as possible such as 3-hour delivery in Sydney, same day delivery to the countries like Adelaide,
Brisbane, Melbourne and free overnight around the country (The Iconic, 2017). The Iconic make
use of the technology to deliver the best shopping experiences in the country.
Mission and vision
The mission of the company is to inspire the icon within every customer. The vision of the
company is to define the future of fashion retail in Australia and New Zealand. The company
achieved the personalized cross-device shopping experience (The Iconic, 2017).
Target Market
Demographic: - The Iconic delivers the stylish collection to both men and women’s. The
Products that the company offers to the men and women’s consist of the dresses to jeans, anklet
booths to sneakers and watches to wallets. The company major target market in Australia and
then New Zealand. There is different age group to whom the company target, the target age
group starts from 18-25 and ends at 65+ (Thorson, & Moore, 2013).
Psychographic- The target of the company is especially on the person who believes in wearing
the stylish and latest dresses. Though, an online mode they keeping launching new stylish
dresses which attract most of the female as females love to keep themselves up to date. The

Retail Marketing 5
lifestyle of female says that they believe in keeping themselves stylish. The primary target of the
company is Females and the secondary target is male (Hollensen, 2015).
Market positioning
The company established in the year 2011 and this is the Australia’s favorite online fashion
retailer that offers the e-commerce stores in Australia. The company is now forming a new
position in the market and becoming everyone favorite but before The Iconic, SurfStitch came
into the existence in the year 2008, though the company went public in 2014. Despite it, the
company, from years the company is maintaining its position in the lifestyle-inspired fashion
stores (Slack, 2015). The Iconic is trying to establish the brand position in the market by
providing best quality products, less delivery time and the stylish dresses. The iconic is the
leader of the online retailer and gradually it is becoming the benchmark company for the online
retailers.
Competitors and competitive advantage
The strong competitor of the iconic company is SurfStitch. Iconic and SurfStitch are a strong
brand that deals in the men and women’s fashion. The brands deal through e-commerce
platforms. The Iconic is leading and becoming popular in the market which is a matter of threat
for the competitor. The company is having the competitive advantage such as the identification
of the product is easy, which is convenient for the customer who visits the iconic site. The
company also provide the live chat option that helps the customers if they are not able to find
anything on the website. The appearance and the design of the home page of the iconic are tested
which not need to be fixed and works smoothly. On the hand, this convenient to the customer is

Retail Marketing 6
not provided by the competitor. The delivery time that is committed to the brand is appreciable
which is not done by the competitors (Wagner III, & Hollenbeck, 2014).
Fashion e-commerce retail industry
The consumers are more involved in the technology and they are making the use of same to
order the product online (Guercini, & Runfola, 2015). This is the reason there is a rise in the
sales done through e-commerce sites. The Apparel is one of the most important and popular
categories for the Australians.
(Source: Levashov, 2016)
 The fashion E-commerce in a country is $3.15B.
 The amount spent by the Australian is approximately $2B, this is considered as the 3rd
category after the groceries and the homeware.
 The online fashion market showed a growth of 18.8% in June 2016 (annual basis).
 The growth is more in the metro areas of the Australia such as Melbourne and Sydney as
compared to the other regional areas, the growth was 22% upward.
 The youth of the Australia spend more amounts to fashion online.

Retail Marketing 7
 The key drivers for e-commerce fashion purchases are value for money, convenience, and
the variety of the latest products availability.
 It is estimated that the 38.4% of online fashion purchases are spontaneous.
Factors affecting the retailer
The retailer also faces some of the factors that can affect the working of the retailer. These
factors are the external factors that vary from company to company.
Environmental factors- The environment can affect the Apparel provided by the brands to the
customer. The change in the season leads to the changes in the dresses of the customers. At the
time of summer, people like to wear light clothes and in winter they like to wear woolen clothes,
this is the reason the retailer needs to bring the changes in the fashion stuff they are providing.
Economic factors- The economic factors might have positive as well negative impact, at the
time of boom, the sales of the clothing increases because people have more disposable income
and vice versa. In the year 2015, the buying power of the people in Australia was more and this
made a customer more confident towards the expenditure on fashionable clothes.
Consumer behavior- The consumer behavior issues might create an impact on the retailer. The
behavior of the customer might vary for the product. The Iconic deals in e-commerce site so they
are not able to understand the need of the customers because they don't have any connection with
the customers.
Changes in industry
The industry of the fashion is changing very fast, traditionally there were stores on which people
need to visits to buy the clothes or dresses. Now, more and more people visit the online sites to
buy latest fashionable and stylish dresses. The technology change is clearly visible with the

Retail Marketing 8
change in the buying pattern; many brands are adopting technology to face the competition. The
retailer who deals through online platform also faces competition in terms of the use of different
software and technology for their sites.
Retail marketing strategy
Retail format
The retail format of the retailer varies from retailer to retailer; the company is following the
Electronic retailing that include e-tailing and internet retailing. Customer communication is done
through the interactive electronic network (Zhu, 2017). The iconic is using the internet retailing
format through which they provide the variety of products to the customers and they
communicate with the customers through online chat which is an electronic network
communication.
Location and accessibility
The brand is located on online platforms or e-commerce website. The physical presence of the
stores is not there, but online presence is there. It is accessible target market of the company
across the Australia, to make it conveniently accessible for the audience company selected the
online retail format. The targeted youth can easily visit the site and order for the dresses
according to the demand. Considering the today’s dynamic world the selection of the location is
properly done so that target audience can easily access the sites (Ellison, & Hawkes, 2016).
Retail mix
The retailers offer merchandise variety and assortment that consist of clothes and shoes. It is
available of the staple and the fashion merchandise products such as denim to jersey, button-up

Retail Marketing 9
shirts to chino shorts along with fashionable women’s dresses, elegant cocktail dresses to
glamorous gowns, party shirts. The collection of suits and blazers for boys gives them smart
formal look. Considering the collection of boots, it provides flats or heels, ankle boots or dress
shoes. In men and women's accessories, it provides a premium leather bag or designer watch
(Melis, Campo, Breugelmans, & Lamey, 2015).
Quality of the product matters a lot for the people who are looking to buy fashionable stuff, the
quality provided by the company is meeting the expectations of the customers. This is the reason
the brand is in demand by the Australian customers.
The retailer's deals in both national as well as the private brands, the availability of both the
brands given by the retailer because the prices of the private brand are less as compared to the
prices of the national brand. National brands are in demand by the people who know the values
of the national brand. The price of the branded products is generally high as compared to the
normal brands. Similarly, the quality of the national brands is far better than the private brand.
Pricing strategy
The prices of the product matter a lot to earn the profit out of the business. The retailer iconic has
kept the prices considering the different types of customers, so the company provides both high
and low prices product. Different customers maintain a budget for purchasing the dresses and
shoes, considering that they find availability of different brands in their budget. The pricing
strategy of the retailer is set in such a way so that they can earn maximum of profit. The cost of
the merchandise varies, it may be low or high but the retailer wants to target richer people so that
they can make maximum profit out of it. The iconic provide some merchandise apparel in a sale
as well so that they will be able to attract more and more people (Nagle, Hogan, & Zale, 2016).

Retail Marketing 10
CRM or customer loyalty program
Customer relationship management term refers to as the practices, strategies, and technology that
the company uses to manage the customer interaction, so that if a company is lacking somewhere
then the company can make proper strategies to form a smooth relationship with the customers
(Stathopoulou, & Balabanis, 2016). The iconic is having the live chat option which provides the
convenience to the target audience and helps in enhancing the customer relationship with the
company. The CRM is beneficial for the business to enhance the loyalty, customer satisfaction
which leads to the enhancement in the goodwill and the awareness along with the value of the
business. The CRM is beneficial for the customers as well because they get the benefit of
discounts, offers, and the problems of the customer are going to be easily resolved (Peppers, &
Rogers, 2016). The customer believes in the services provided by the brand and this relationship
enhances the trust of the customers for the brand.
The iconic follows the Customer loyalty program, through this program the company provides
the rewards to the customers who are going to make the purchase frequently with the company.
They have a membership with the Qantas airline, through which the company provides the gift
vouchers and coupons to make the purchase from the retailer (Qantas Points, 2017).
Communication Mix
The communication mix helps the company in maintaining the brand image in the market. The
use of the communication helps the company to promote the brand to create the awareness for
brand and connection with the customers (Todorova, 2015).
The Iconic uses the online or digital marketing; the company is an online e-commerce site.
Creating the integrated marketing campaign with online marketing helps the brand to form a

Retail Marketing 11
connection with the brand. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is the best way to promote the
brand in front of the target audience. The advertisement on these platforms helps the brand in
creating the awareness and equity for the brand.
Physical bricks and mortar store
The Iconic is an e-commerce retailer that provides the availability of the merchandise products
online only. Talking about the stores, there is no s such store where the company sells its
products but there is store in Sydney. At these place employees of the company perform the
activity of the packaging of the product that needs to be delivered on daily basis.
The image of the store clearly shows that this is the place where from where packaging and
delivery of the product take place. The employees are keeping the record of the products
available at the store. The store seems to be a warehouse where the products are kept by the
company. This is based in Sydney, this is the reason company promise 3 hour delivery in
Sydney, the product is directly delivered to the customer from the store.