Fashion Retail: Chanel The fashion industry is a very important part of the economy. It makes up a great amount of revenue that we attain each year and it generates employment. With short trend cycles that change each season, a vast variety of apparel choices and unpredictable demand due to the shifting of the economy, the industry is never the same from year to year. From raw materials to export chains, merchandise is then sent out and sold by fashion retail professionals. These professionals always need to be up to date with that others are doing and how the industry is changing in order for them to make a profit. To be up to date with knowledge, one within the industry can attend trade shows or be a part of the Apparel and Footwear Association. Being a part of these organizations, industry professionals get to attain exclusive information from the U.S. apparel and sewn product industry. Industry professionals also attend Fall and Spring fashion week annually in New York, Paris, Milan and London. At these events, designers get the chance to display their latest collections by having models model them on the runway to show industry professionals what is “in” and what is “out” for the season. One designer that attends fashion week is Chanel S.A., otherwise known as Chanel. It is one of the most recognized names in luxury retail. With one hundred boutiques and twenty shopin-shop boutiques, they are privately owned by the Wertheimer family. Chanel strives to be the “ultimate purveyor of luxury” within the retail industry, catering to the upper class that has discretionary income to spend. Chanel specializes in handbags, perfumes, cosmetics, clothing, jewelry and shoes. With sales of 1.5 billion dollars a year, Chanel strives to be one of the leading luxury brands in this recession. In order to be one of the leading luxury brands in this recession, Chanel does many great things, but in order to be an even better luxury brand, they could focus in on the trend of “going
green.” With much concern about our environment and how we could help save it these days, Chanel can also participate in this movement in more ways than one and also keep their prestigious reputation high. As we see around us, there are less catalogs and paper advertisements. Much of advertising is now being done on outdoor billboards and online. Retailers, such as H&M, are offering organic clothing by incorporation organic cotton, linen and recycled polyester within some of their new collections. Overall, the fashion industry wants to reduce their impact on the environment to save the planet. Ways in which Chanel can incorporate this idea into their aesthetic is to first focus on advertisement. They could minimize the amount of magazine ads they show by picking only a certain number of magazines that truly target their target customer. Then to reach their target customer on a more precise measure, they can send emails to valued clientele. Chanel can also show their ads through luxury online shops, such as eLuxury, Barneys, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and Bluefly, where their targeted customer is known to shop. When their customer decides they would like to see what their new products have to offer, they will then go to their boutiques, where their new line can offer organic cotton pieces and accessories made from recycled material. After their customer buys a few items, the associate can pack their merchandise in one hundred percent recycled paper bags and boxes and print them a receipt on recycled paper. This would not only help the environment through the stores efforts, but it will appeal to the consumers because their favorite luxury brand is jumping on the bandwagon of “going green.” Therefore, there will be more appeal to Chanel’s consciousness to the environment that will generate more sales. Another way in which Chanel could increase their sales is by making the merchandise a slight bit lower than its regular cost, but not advertising their lower prices. They could do this in
a discreet way, such as changing their price tags completely just to reflect one price. While altering the price of their merchandise, they would not be destroying their brand image of luxury because they are simply lowering the prices and not implying that there was a sale. When doing this, they have to think about the consumers’ reaction because they might see the same product one week at full price and a few weeks later the same product could be offered for a fraction of the cost. I believe the best way to reduce their prices would be as soon as they put them on the floor the first time the shipments come in. This way the price seems more affordable, but not so high in price, that everyone can buy it. Since we are currently going through a recession that has made consumers spend less and therefore given retailers no other option than to cut back on inventory, stores and personnel, the idea of lower prices might appeal to some. Even though sales are slowly climbing higher, industry professionals are not yet taking the risk of ordering more inventory; they believe the demand for clothing will rise slowly over the next couple of years. A way in which Chanel can speed up this process is by slowly lowering prices to get their merchandise sold and to make room for their new products. They might not make as big of a profit by doing this, but they will defiantly be selling a higher quantity of merchandise because of the lower price. By being on top of everything that is happening around, Chanel’s company will improve our economy and boost their own business revenue by following these simple steps. Â