PRETTYLITTLETHING Audit report Mia Vickery
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Executive summary Pretty Little thing was crowned fastest growing online store. In this report I will be analysing how this online fashion brand has become so successful in such a short amount of time. I will be doing so by deďŹ ning their values, key strategies, ďŹ nancial reports and lastly their marketing environments. I will then conclude on predicting future opportunities for this brand. PLT is a UK-based fashion retailer, aimed at 16-24 year old women.The company is co-founded by brothers Adam and Umar Kamani in 2012. This brand review will look into what the brand has done since then to be considered successful using primary and secondary research. It will also look into what competitors it is up against and ways in which the brand can improve its current position in the market.
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Content page Introduction..6 Brand Evaluation..8 Financial report..10 SWOT..11 Four P’s..12 Macro Environment..14 Micro Environment..15 Conceptual map..17 Critique of marketing communications..18 Social Media follow count..19 Future challenges and opportunities..22 Conclusion..23 Referencing..25
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Introduction
PrettyLittleThing (PLT) is a Uk based fast fashion online retailer. It was founded in 2012 by two brothers Umar and Adam Kamani. What originally started as an accessory brand soon expanded into something much bigger, they now sell a broad range of women's wear clothing items, shoes and accessories.
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PLT’s product strategy is to be a youthful trend leader
in online women’s fashion, offering a wide range of products at great prices, supported by an engaging global social media presence. The brand aims to let every girl
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feel like a celebrity with her clothes.
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fashionunited.uk 6
This brand has a very distinct brand identity but that does not mean it is free from competition. Some of PLT’s main competitors are Missguided, ASOS and Boohoo. The online fashion market is highly competitive and is growing more and more each day, it has increased by 258% in five years and has contributed massively to the economy. The Aim of this retail audit report is to firstly evaluate the brand by defining its values and key strategies, financial performance, micro and macro environments, then lastly asses it’s future challenges and opportunities.
Pretty Little thing is for ‘the girl who wants fast, affordable fashion and who shopped for the weekend, every weekend’. 7
Brand evaluation Pretty Little thing is for ‘the girl who wants fast, affordable fashion and who shopped for the weekend, every weekend’. PLT prides themselves in youth and make sure to have young employees bringing new ideas to the table. This allows them to better understand and communicate to their target audience known as Generation Z or millennials. “It’s important more young people start standing up and speaking about how things can be different, otherwise we just keep learning from what used to be.” A key to their success is the speed at which they are able to spot celebrity trends and have them up on the website within a matter of days. "We’re quite reactive, we’re faster than fast fashion. If I wanted to sell the dress you’ve got on right now, I could have that designed, photographed up and ready on the site within three days.” - Umar PLT understand the value of social media and influencers. For example, in 2016 Kylie Jenner wore a $35 orange PrettyLittleThing (PLT) dress to the British online retailer’s US launch party. 24 hours later, the dress had completely sold out. “When a girl has 200,000 followers on social media and some magazines don’t even get that readership, you have to question if that girl is a better magazine than the actual magazine” Keeping up with the age of technology and social media what sets apart the brothers from their father Mahmud Kamani, who happens to be the founder of Boohoo. 8
Like many other successful fashion business they listen to their consumers “PLT was moulded by the customer: we try things, we change things, we listen to the customer and we became this brand through the customers voice,” Kamani said. Even though they were crowned the fastest growing retailer of the year, Kamani still think there is more to improve and are not successful enough yet. Another one of Kamani’s key components to success is always having room for improvement, even though PLT was named the fastest growing retailer of the year they still believe there is a lot more to be improved.
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Financial report Pretty Little Thing continues to grow more each year and is not slowing down. In 2015 the company said that its sales tripled. It went from £5 million in 2014 to £30 million the following year. Since using Fredhopper, which is a specialist website known to helping e-commerce retailers to changing their configurations and way of merchandising, PLT’s order value across global e-commerce increased by 8% . This kind of website allows the customers to have an easier time when navigating through the brand’s website which overall gives them a better shopping experience. PLT was one of the first to use Fredhopper in the UK and they now have a better visibility and are improving their visual merchandising which is attracting more customers to shop more frequently. Since using Frehopper PLT increased their new customers by 483%. Not only are their customers increasing so is their return on investment (ROI) by 258%. BOOHOO.COM PLC ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2018 ● REVENUE £181.2m REVENUE GROWTH OF 228% ● The sales revenue in 2017 above (£181,269) for PrettyLittleThing is for the two months to 28 February 2017 following acquisition. For comparative purposes, PLT’s revenue for the twelve months to 28 February 2017 was £55.3 million.
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S
trengths
They have a huge following on social media with the demographics of their targeted age group – 16 to 24 Wide range of products at affordable prices Fast working team which are on top of fashion trends
W
eaknesses
Low quality material They don’t have a retail shop so consumers cannot try on clothes before they buy them
O
pportunities
They can expand their sustainable line as this is a huge trend right now They have over 10 million followers on Instagram and can use this to their advantage to push marketing the brand even further
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hreats
Brexit may affect overseas shipping fees making it less accessible Highly competitive market If the internet goes down or there is some technical issues, sales will stop completely as they rely entirely on their e-commerce store 11
Four P ‘ s Price
- Low and affordable
Product
- Decent quality clothes - Womenswear and accessories
Promotion -
Social media Email SMS Student discount codes Events
Place
- E-commerce store - Main headquarters in Manchester - offices also in LA and London - Social media platforms
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Macro Environment
Political
The major external and uncontrollable factors that inuence an organization's decision making, and affect its performance and strategies. These factors include the economic factors; demographics; legal, political, and social conditions; technological changes; and natural forces.
Brexit may affect international shipping costs
Economic
The UK online fashion market has continued growing in the past 10 years
Social
Millennials, also known as Generation Y are a very attractive market and are the pioneers of social media. With the rise of sustainability consciousness within social media, this is something they will be very aware of. Fast fashion is in the spotlight for being one of the leading causes of environmental pollution. If PLT fail to recognise this and work with the times, they could see a huge loss of sales
Technological
We rely on technology to get through our day to day lives and we are always looking at how we can simplify it in hopes of making our lives easier. It is now possible to order clothes from your phone and get it delivered to your door the next day within a matter of minutes.
Legal
PLT’s customers are protected by a data protection and privacy law 14
Micro Environment the immediate small-scale environment of an organism or a part of an organism, especially as a distinct part of a larger environment.
Company
PLT is part of a private limited company called 21 Three CLothing based in Manchester
Marketing intermediaries
The brand partnered with ASOS and with Lipsy selling styles on their website and through multinational retailer Next. The name of the brand can easily be found in the search bar of these websites.
Competitors
PLT’s main competitors are Missguided, Boohoo and ASOS. They all provide similar products and have effective e-commerce platforms. The e-commerce market is a growing and highly competitive one.
Publics
Boohoo PLC bought PLT at 66% in 2017 and now own the larger stake of the company
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Conceptual map The brand offers good quality products with low prices. To compare it with other e-tailers here is a conceptual map of its positioning within the market.
High price
Low quality
High quality
Low price 17
Critique on the company’s marketing communication practice Pretty Little Thing have accounts on all of the main social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Youtube.Without a digital marketing strategy, opportunities will be missed and businesses will be lost. The digital marketplace is constantly evolving and PLT must understand that digital marketing affects their relationship with their customer. Paid advertisements on social are very effective for their target market as this is where they spend a lot of their time. Once you have signed up to PLT’s website they will be able to send their customers text messages and email updates on the latest offers which always have a direct link to making it very easy to drive traffic to their website. The reason PLT has been able to become the fastest growing online retail platform is because they understand the importance of collaborating with influencers on social media. An influencer is a person who is paid to post on social media because they have a large number of following on the internet. It is a really effective for of marketing because their followers trust their words and look up to them for inspiration. Every time an influencer has a picture posted wearing a PLT item, however many followers they have will be exposed to the brand and it will probably like the brand since their favourite influencer is wearing them.
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Social Media following
Instagram 10.7 million followers
Twitter 295 K
Facebook 1,988,108 followers
Youtube 11K 19
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They have also taken this further by creating entire lines in collaboration with particular influencers. For example they collaborated with Anastasia Karanikolaou also known as ‘Starssiebaby’ who has over 3.5 million followers on instagram alone to introduce their new ‘shape’ line for curvy women. A more recent collaboration was with Kourtney Kardashian who has over 77 million followers on instagram. PLT also makes use of creating entertainment events for their instagram influencers not only as a thank you but or more exposure since they will post about it on their social media platforms. The last form of advertisement is physical posters which can be found around the tube stations in London or printed all over some of the traditional black cabs. This is really effective as it is not very often you see an entirely pink car in London so if you see one you most likely won’t miss it.
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Future challenges and opportunities Like every successful business PLT will face some challenges in the future. Relying only on an online store has its pros and its cons. They have room to expand into a physical store which again has its challenges but it can be done with the right marketing just like Missguided did. They do have a very strong brand identity which keeps them at an advantage. However, they are in a very competitive market and there is always a risk to newer online stores arising which have better quality items at lower prices. They will also have to face the challenge of what is happening globally and is impossible to go unmissed. That is ethical and sustainable consciousness. ‘Fast fashion’ is already seen as a taboo subject and although it may not be stopping young girls from purchasing fast fashion now, it may be an issue for the future. This can be a major opportunity but equally major downfall if PLT fails to keep up with the times and address this issue with the correct marketing and campaigns. One can see that they have already made an attempt to address this topic by creating a recyclable line but it is still a premature line as it only offers very basic styles.
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Conclusion After evaluating the brand by defining it’s key strategies, looking at it’s financial performance and critiquing it’s marketing communications we can conclude that Pretty Little Thing is a brand that continues to grow each year. Their ability to stay close to their values by keeping it fresh, fast working and on top of trends allows them to stay ahead of the game and beat any obstacles in their way. They still have a long way to go and areas to improve but as long as they continue to listen to their customers they should continue to grow and remain on top.
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Referencing
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