2. Company Introduction
• Uniqlo Co., Ltd. (株式会社ユニクロ Kabushiki-
gaisha yunikuro), is a Japanese casual
wear designer, manufacturer and retailer.
• Wholly owned subsidiary of Fast Retailing
Co., Ltd. since November 2005.
• Founded by Tadashi Yanai, and he was
also the Chairman, President & CEO or
Uniqlo.
• The company operates in 14 other
countries globally, such as Australia,
Canada, Bangladesh, China, France,
Germany, Hong Kong & Macau,
Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia,
Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan,
Thailand, United States, United Kingdom
3. UNIQLO
• It is a shopping products
• Customer will compare it carefully with the same products in other
brands before they buy.
• Suitability, quality, price and style will be the elements of comparing of
the similar products
• It is less frequently purchased too
4. Main Customers
• Primary Group Demographics
Age Range: 18-24 years old
Gender: Male/Female
Education: Undergraduate and above
Income Range: $160 - $480 (weekly),
$10,000 - $24,000 (annually)
Race and Ethnicity: All races
Geographic Location: Urban areas
• Secondary Group Demographics
Age Range: 25-35 years old
Gender: Male/Female
Education: Undergraduate and above
Income Range: $480-$1280 (weekly),
$25,000 - $60,000 (annually)
Race and Ethnicity: All races
Geographic Location: Urban areas
6. Product
• Production mix:
-UNIQLO has tactically reduced the number of lines
-Focused on its core items such as HEATTECH, Premium Down Ultra Light jackets
and Silky Dry.
• each category is available in a wide selection of designs, colours, patterns and sizes
so that it is likely to meet the needs for all.
• In response to high demands for its winter items, the brand has particularly
prioritized selling HEATTECH by extending its production line from innerwear
towards jeans and tights.
7. Place
• UNIQLO established an SPA business model that brings the entire process from
manufacturing to marketing under the brand’s direct control.
• It enable UNIQLO to oversee its Global Quality and Safety Standards are
maintained. As a consequence, the brand achieved to reduce the environmental
impact and improve working conditions.
8. Promotion
• UNIQLO’s promotional activities, particularly by utilizing digital tools, are
adapted to the new tendency of communication and consumer behaviour.
• They give emotional and personalized experiences that are related to the
company’s concept “Japanese high-technology”, and attract more multicultural
set of customers despite language barriers.
9. Price
• UNIQLO’s strategies are based on offering good quality at cheap price as well as enforcing
customers the brand image that its products are affordable.
• UNIQLO’S pricing Strategies:
-Mass production in Chinese factories helps UNIQLO cut the cost dramatically.
-UNIQLO starts pricing at low-margin, and they drop their price even lower at the end of the
season, for example, bundling 3 shirts for one.
-UNIQLO sets its price points between £10 and £100, and those prices are dependent on the
product features such as materials, functionalities and designs.
10. Production Concept
• UNIQLO has a team of technical specialists, known as the Takumi Team
• These specialists are sent directly to our partner factories in China to offer
technical instruction and share their abundant experience. At the same time, the
supervisors from the Production Department, based in the Shanghai office,
make weekly visits to partner factories to check the quality and progress of
production.
11. Product Concept
HEATTECH
• Collaboration between UNIQLO and Toray Industries, Inc. HEATTECH is a unique
highly functional line of innerwear that offers amazing comfort, which has won
over a multitude of customers.
12. Product Concept
• AIRism
• Wearing AIRism eliminates the sweaty feeling you get in hot, humid weather.
Ultra-fine fiber technology regulates the circulation of the air between your
skin and your outer layers of clothing for a light, cool, soft feel.
13. Marketing Concept
– UNIQLO Customer Centre receives approximately 90,000 comments from
customers annually.
– HEATTECHproducts: customer feedback about asking for softer fabric, a
function to keep skin both warm and prevent dryness and an expanded range of
colours.
15. Is the company offering
products/services which are mostly
fads, fashion or style?
Chapter
1,8
16. – Uniqlo promotes timeless fashion which means everyone can pull off the effortless mix and
match style
– Simple, durable and high quality
– Casual and comfort clothing to Any Person, Any Season, Anywhere which can last for years
21. – Made up of individuals and organizations
– Close to the company
– Produces a direct impact to the business organization’s state
– E.g: distribution channels, suppliers and manufacturers, competitors, customer, shareholders and
partner relationships
23. DISTRIBUTORS Uniqlo has set up an SPA business
(Specialty store retailer of Private label Apparel) to cover the
entire processes from its design and manufacturing to final sale.
24. COMPETITORS Value market in fashion industry is
becoming tremendously competitive. For example, Zara,
H&M, and Primark are examples of the competitor brands for
Uniqlo.
25. SUPPLIERS and MANUFACTURERS Uniqlo has
built a strong business partnership with Kaihara Corporation and
Toray Industries. Both are the suppliers of Japanese
technological and functional materials such as HeatTech and
Windproof Jeans.
27. – Cannot be controlled because of its size
– E.g: political, economical, social and technological forces
28. POLITICAL A territorial dispute within China, Taiwan and Japan. Besides,
Uniqlo conforms closer partnership economic arrangement and textile memorandum of
understanding. In 2005, the Japanese Ministry of Environment started an energy saving
campaign known as cool biz campaign to allow more casual style at work.
29. ECONOMICAL As for the dramatic growth of Chinese economy, the
expenses spend on manufacturing and labor in China are increasing. Besides,
Uniqlo reported that their stores in New Jersey closed because of the
worldwide economic downturn and investment drifts in the USA.
30. SOCIAL Customers nowadays are more aware of ethical and
environmental issues. Therefore, UNIQLO has dedicated to Corporate Social
Responsibility activities through ensuring the safety of workers, collaborating with
communities and reducing its environmental impact. Besides, Japan have to deal
with a serious problem of aging population as the percentage of youth is decreasing
thus Uniqlo must change target customers and their buying behavior.
31.
32. Provide a newspaper article for one
of the factors you chose for the
macro environment
Chapter 3.
33.
34.
35. If you were a manager of this company, how
would you obtain information on your
customers for the development of future
products/services? Explain the last two ways !
Chapter 4.
36. Focus
Group
What are Focus Groups? And why we use them?
Most people love to be asked their opinion and they're
generally not shy about voicing it. A focus group is basically
a way to reach out to your potential users for feedback and
comment.
37. How to begin?
1. Prepare questions or a discussion guide about
the given product or service.
2. Select a random sample of representatives
from target populations. Each focus group
should be made up from 8-20 participants. (
Teenagers, elders, women, men etc)
38. 3. To encourage customers to come in, you can put on a free
lunch and offer some free training on your products/services
or offer some free consulting.
This way, your customers get something out of it, and you
don’t need to reach into your pockets and pay anybody.
39. 4. So since our customers are already there, we just bring them together for a
quick 30 minutes to discuss some interesting questions and topics. This way we’re
getting customer feedback, but it’s not costing us too much, and it’s not
inconveniencing our customers.
40. Monitor
Social Media
Social media is the ultimate fast way to
listen to your customers. Customer
feedback is a plenty when it comes to
sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. The
challenge is how to monitor it effectively
and use it meaningfully.
41. Tools like Sprout Social and SocialBro can help you keep a
finger on the pulse of social media mentions.
What Sprout Social does then is notify you whenever your
keywords are mentioned on social media sites.
It can then pro-actively engage customers that are talking
about you, and either solve their problems or provide
answers to their questions. While doing this, you are
gathering customer feedback, indirectly.
42. Do you think this company
has a strong brand?
Explain
Chapter 8.
44. First, Uniqlo has a clear vision of its brand to provide high quality,
performance-enhanced, basic casual wear at the lowest prices. Uniqlo
provides “made for all’ clothing that can be worn whenever and
wherever. It is not, like some competitors, a firm that sells copies of the
latest runway fashions.
Second, Uniqlo brands its innovations. One of their signature
innovations is HeatTech, a fabric developed in conjunction with a
material science firm that turns moisture into heat and has air pockets
in the fabric to retain that heat.
Third, their operational strategy gives them both a cost and agility
advantage. Their low cost operation is based on their ownership of product
planning, design, manufacturing and distribution
45. Fourth, the driving force is a charismatic owner-founder. Tadashi Yanai is
a hands-on leader who supports a strong, unique culture that is hard to
duplicate.
Fifth, the emphasis on the in-store experience is over-the-top and involves
hiring, training, and micro-managing all touchpoints.
Finally, the firm thinks big. Yanai wants to move beyond the primary
mission to enrich people’s lives by providing truly great clothing to offer
customers everywhere the world’s best stores, service and products.
46. In 1994 it had approximately 100 stores in Japan. In 2015, it will have 840 stores
in Japan and 1,170 stores outside of Japan, 820 of which are under the Uniqlo
brand.
In 2016 it will continue a sharp sales trajectory with sales around 14 billion
dollars becoming a top five global “own brand” clothing retailer.
47. Did the company use any line
extension strategy, brand extension
strategy or multibrands ?
Find pictures
Chapter 8.
51. Multibrand
In 2010, Uniqlo partnered with Grameen Healthcare
Trust in Bangladesh to promote social businesses.
52. If the company would collect the information in
the way you describe it under 1. Would you as a
consumer be concerned? (each group member
stating his/her opinion
Chapter 4.
53. Munkhzul – I wouldn’t concerned that much because I think these two ways as a
my way to help this company to improve. But monitoring social media thing can
get little creepy.
Jacqueline- This sample collecting sample group is too often to be seen
nowadays, so it’s nothing that will make me concerned very much. But I will be
slightly concerned about the 2nd method, because it’d my privacy that I don’t
really want to share sometimes.
Eva - I wont be concerned both methods too much because there's nothing to
hide. Besides, I love giving an opinion on a product to help particular company to
improve.
This resulted in 18.5% increase in December 2010 for Japan UNIQLO stores (Bane, 2010).
Known as “vertical integration” helping companies to cut transportation expenses, improve the efficiency and ensure the product quality (Tungate, 2008 p 233).
* SPA stands for “Specialty store retailer of Private label Apparel,” meaning that the company’s activities are fully integrated from manufacturing through sales, including material procurement, design, product development, production, distribution, inventory management and final sales.
This strategy, which is called “psychological pricing”, is intended to make the customers believe the price is cheaper than it actually is, and also effective to emphasis the value of its product
In order to produce millions of products of standardized quality, it becomes important to implement quality control across factory production technology and management.
The hallmark qualities of HEATTECH are its thinness, lightness and softness, and the comfort achieved by the elasticity of the fabric is so outstanding that it has continued to both greatly impress and satisfy our customers.
Customer opinions and needs play a vital role in UNIQLO’s product development.
Since their clothing company they have so many line extension strategies