FOREVER 21 WICKED FOR
SPRING 2011
TARGET MARKET
FOREVER 21
Forever 21 aims to capture the 13-year-old girl to 25-year-old young woman consumer with its versatile collections. The ideal female is active, informed, fashion and trend oriented. Financially, she resides both independently and dependently in the lower middle to middle class range.
Forever 21’s consumer is a student ranging from the secondary to graduate level. The retailer supplies her with current and youthful assortments that cover casual to semiformal wear. Mix and match pieces cover everyday pursuits, like shopping and the movies. While more refined items appease the customer for socials, nights out on the town and business in mind.
WICKED Wicked is for pre-teen to early teen girls who come from a lower-middle to middle class families. Although this customer may save up their allowance to spend on shopping, this girl mostly depends on her parents for financial help when looking to shop for clothing. This customer is all about comfort while still be trendy at the same time. She loves bold colors and graphic details.
The Wicked customer enjoys playing sports, but she is also a complete girly girl. She wants clothes to run around in for a quick game of soccer in the park, but also go to these same items for lounging around with her friends in her backyard.The Wicked customer is looking for fun and bold way to show off her casual athletic style for the upcoming Spring season.
FOREVER 21 COMPARABLE COLLECTIONS When entering Forever21, customers often see key sales and outfits on mannequins and on main displays. Then it goes from trend to trend in the organized free flow layout. Forever 21 is split into sections of trends that the store is informing the customer of. Currently, there is a nautical trend, a floral trend, and an ethnic print trend flowing around the store. Forever21 also always has the classic basics section, an on trend jewelry and accessories section, and activewear.
The way the stripes of the nautical trend section flow into the activewear and basics section, makes it seem consistent, but also makes it harder to see the difference between the two sections. The ethnic pattern and floral trends are also grouped together. Down the center of the store is the accessories and jewelry section, as well as point of sales.
LAYOUT & VISUAL STRATEGY In an effort to encourage browsing and increase shopper exposure to various merchandise categories, Forever 21 employs a free flow layout in conjunction with fixtures and merchandise within the space. The retailer’s weakness with this approach is the limited space provided for natural consumer flow. When observed, it was clear that no traffic pattern existed. Shoppers moved in random directions, clustering in pockets of open space. Instead of fixtures accommodating the guest, they disrupted. Products in Forever 21 are merchandised in a coordinating strategy. This means the potential buyer is provided with visual connections pertaining to outfit combinations. Unfortunately, due to high volume, this aesthetic appeared messy and unorganized.
FOREVER 21 FIXTURES Forever21 uses a wide assortment of fixtures, from slatted wall bays to t-stands and fourways. There are also rounders, ballet bars, arched ballet bars that are used in a semi-circle and a circle arrangemenst, high volume tables, a handback rack, et cetera. The store also has an interesting combination unit that it repeats in the space that looks like two donkeys put together at a perpendicular adjacency. These fixtures do not include the
Forever21 uses fixtures for high volume, to fit in as much clothing as possible for their shoppers to get ahold of. For tables, wall shelves, and on the top of donkeys are denim, key item sales, and basic tops, which are all folded merchandise. The rest of the merchandise is hung on the donkeys, rounders, balley bars, four ways, and t-stands. These garments are more for the fashion tops, bottoms, and outerwear.
MERCHANDISED PRODUCT Forever21 also has a wide arrangement of product. Eventhough the store is a chaotic and messy, there is a thought process of how product is merchandised in the space. The store is separated into sections defined by the trend Forever21 is trying to portray to the customer. In each of these sections, there are ballet bars, four-ways, donkeys, t-stands, wallbays, and sometimes rounders. On these fixtures, there is an overflowing number of garments that get compactedly hung onto each fixture. This makes it hard for potential consumers to pull one garment out, without taking a few more garments out at the same time. On high volume tables, key sales items, denim, and basics are folded and organized either by style or by color.
WICKED LAYOUT & VISUAL STRATEGY To provide for a large collection like Wicked the store is designed in the free flow style and comprised of high capacity floor fixtures such as stackable tables, 4 ways, donkeys, T stands and ballet bars. The walls are also adorned with shelving and feature fixtures like waterfalls and straight arms for additional product display and a more cohesive aesthetic connection. The space is utilized to its greatest efficiency through the strategic manipulation of high volume fixtures, but emphasis is placed on allowing comfortable space for traffic flow and a better overall shopping experience.
MERCHANDISED PRODUCT Wicked’s merchandise is all bold colors and bold patterns, so merchandising is key to not overwhelm customers. The use of high volume fixtures mirror Forever21’s merchandising strategy of pushing product in high quantities onto customers. The majority of our garments are hung, just like Forever21, but we also fold garments like hoodies, tops, and skirts because they are key item sales that we want to push onto consumers. Hung garments are put together with a limited style amount on each fixture, so consumers are not overwhelmed by a huge array of styles. Although there are many styles in the store, it is merchandised well enough to still be organized and welcoming.
FOREVER 21 KING OF PRUSSIA
CHERRY HILL
WICKED LAYOUT
FRONT VIEW WALL BAY 1
4WAY 3
WALL BAY 2
2-TSTAND & TABLE COMBO
4WAY 2
TREND CASUAL
SLEEPWEAR
DONKEY 1
BALLET BAR 1 PLAN VIEW
BALLET BAR 2
4WAY 1
DONKEY 2
TABLE 1 & TABLE 2
WICKED FIXTURES
TABLE 1 & TABLE 2
4WAY 1
BALLET BAR 1
DONKEY 1
2T-STAND TABLE COMBO
BALLET BAR 2
4WAY 2
4WAY 3
DONKEY 2
WALL BAY 1
WALL BAY 2