Target Markets

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Being in the fashion industry, whether you are the designer, merchandiser, sales associate, it is critical to know your target market. Determing what kind of merchandise to sell is easy by being knowledgeable of your customers age, gender, what TV shows they watch, what kind of music they listen to, etc. Knowing your target market well, will ensure success.

Believe it or not there is a science behind consumers and what drives them to buy a pair of shoes, or a paticular pair of pants. The VALS segments places adult US consumers into different categories. These eight categories include innovators, thinkers, achievers, experiencers, believers, strivers, makers, and survivors.

http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/types.shtml

Our group's retailer was GNC. GNC is a company that sells a variety of health supplements, vitamins, diet and energy products, as well as herbs. I believe GNC's target market would be considered achievers. Achievers are goal oriented and very family oriented. They place a high standard on image and prefer prestiege products.

When I took the VALS survey, I was labeled an experiencer/innovator. I like to take chances and experiment with clothes and accessories. I am interested in new ways in technology as well as new ideas. I definitely consider myself an experiecer. I'm very enthusiastic about the new trends. I also am placed in this category because I spend much of my income on apparel and accessories.

Behind H&M

Fashion and quality at the best price. That is H&M philosophy. As I stated in my previous post, H&M is my favorite retail store to shop at. They were established in Sweden in 1947 by Erling Persson. They have now grown to be located in 33 different countries and have around 1,700 stores around the world. H&M largest market is in Germany where they have close to 215 stores.

H&M stands for Hennes and Mauritz. It first started out selling only women's clothing but have since branched out to cater to everyone.

One of the ways H&M if different from other stores is having collaborations with different designers. They first designer to have a collection sold in H&M was Karl Lagerfeld in 2004. Since his collection drew huge crownds they have since had several more collaborations with Stella McCartney, Viktor & Rolf and even Madonna. I'm really looking forward to the collection by Matthew Williamson that is supposed to debut in the Spring and Summer of this year.

I found this really cool video from 2 years ago. It's of an H&M fashion show in NY.
Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji2yXSUdkvs