Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, Second edition - Pr School

112 Fashion Marketing
Managing Director of New Look, said, ‘A customer is as likely to buy a CD
as one of our blouses. To be honest I’ve given up trying to fathom out why
people buy what they do.’ (Aldred, 1998).
Levels of education are higher than ever before. Perhaps more important,
there is the cumulative experience of two generations’ exposure to marketing
media, press, radio and TV. Shoppers have ‘wised-up’ to the various
marketing strategies and programmes on offer. The media themselves
delight in exposing any form of consumer ‘exploitation’ (especially by retailers
or travel companies). Customers are also more willing to try alternative
new, often global, providers if they feel they can get a better deal. Hence the
growth of businesses like Easy Jet, Amazon.com and the world’s most successful
new retailer, E-bay.
Shoppers are more confident than ever before in their capability to solve
their own problems. They will write their own wills (on forms bought from
W. H. Smith), treat their own ailments (with medicine bought from ASDA),
select and book their holidays (from Expedia or Airline Network), plan an
instant dinner party (courtesy of Marks & Spencer) and even select a new
partner via the Internet. If there is something they cannot do then they go to
an evening class or seek help on the ‘Net’. The Thatcher years engendered a
culture of self-help in the UK which is unique, and which has endured well
beyond her demise.
For many people, incremental Time (and Energy) now has more value than
incremental Money. Kurt Salmon Associates’ 1998 Consumer Confidence
survey reported that, given the choice, 53 per cent of people would opt for
more time over more money. Most people are striving to increase their personal
time productivity in order to squeeze more activity and more experience
into a finite (if longer) life expectancy. ‘I want it NOW’ has become
the cry of today’s consumer. Kids cannot understand why supper takes
two minutes in the microwave when the package says ‘instant’. In the food
industry, Proctor and Gamble have invented the 20:20 rule 20 minutes to
shop for a meal and 20 minutes to prepare it. Leading retailers like Tesco
(‘Metro’ and ‘Express’) and Sainsbury (‘Central’ and ‘Local’) grow market
share and profits by giving customers back their time in exchange for higher
prices and margins. Starbucks famously sell a ‘15 minute experience’, rather
than coffee and buns.
In the furnishings sector, IKEA has swept all before it by offering instant
fashion for the home, while traditional furnishers like Queensway, Maples
and Waring & Gillow (now no more) continued to take customers’ deposits
and deliver a solution 6–8 weeks later. In fashion, much of the independent
sector still expects orders to be placed 6 months in advance. ‘Fast
Fashion’ companies like Zara, Hennes & Mauritz and Top Shop are aiming
to cut lead times from design studio to store display to as little as 15 days,
a model now being emulated by capsule collections from ASDA and Marks &
Spencer.
When time runs out, people shift something to another time, making use
of time that would otherwise be dead. They video late night films, sports