Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, Second edition - Pr School

Globalization: global markets and global supplies 23
Table 1.11 Supermarket share of clothing market % sales value
Clothing sales by value 2003 2004 2005
Asda 3.1 3.4 3.7
Tesco 1.4 2.0 2.3
Sainsburys 0.2 0.3 0.3
4.7 5.7 6.3
Other supermarkets 0.4 0.3 0.3
All supermarkets 5.1 6.0 6.6
Source: TNS.
figure. Some of the biggest losers in the rise of the supermarket as a serious
clothing competitor have been some of the major high street specialist names
like The Gap, Evans, Burtons and Dorothy Perkins. The rapid growth of some
of the discounters has also been halted with Matalan, Bon Marche and to a
lesser extent Primark all feeling the chill wind of supermarket competition in
some categories. Marks and Spencer, Woolworths, Littlewoods and C&A have
also lost ground in some categories to the growth of the supermarket. Both
C&A and Littlewoods withdrew from the UK retail clothing market in 2002
and 2003 respectively. Independent retailers have also lost out in the rise of
supermarket fashion. Supermarkets have in many respects taken a fresh look
at where they can extract value from their existing customer base. They have
then set about the task with the same efficiency they apply to sourcing and
procurement of most other products.
The average age of the supermarket consumer buying women’s clothing in
the UK is between 35 and 55 years but this does not mean that people younger
or older are excluded. One significant trend identified in the last few years
is the notion of ‘perceived age’ as opposed to chronological age. People over
50 years old often have a much lower self-perceived age and this influences
purchasing behaviour. It would have been unthinkable just 20–30 years ago
for mothers shopping for clothes with their daughters for fashion-wear, but
today this is not so. Similarly, the increasingly active older person is buying
more casual wear for holidays and various activities they engage in. None of
this has gone unnoticed by supermarket buyers and merchandisers keen to fill
their increasingly larger retail spaces with more non-food ranges that potentially
offer greater profitability.
Figure 1.2 illustrates the average age profile of customers in the UK Womenswear
retail sector and the average price points (indexed). For example John
Lewis customers are aged between 50 and 60 years and an average price index
just under 2.1 relative to H&M customers average age just under 30 years and
an average price index around 0.7. It is possible to profile particular patterns
from such data. This type of data is used to segment fashion markets with the
aim of targeting marketing communications.
This section has given an overview of the UK retail clothing sector and
demonstrated its interconnectedness to world markets through sourcing and