Lululemon Athletica Inc. - Marketing Essay Example

Some companies strive to meet the needs of a vast market while some choose to concentrate on a specific niche of the market. Unlike other marketing strategies, niche marketing serves the needs of a small segment of the market and aims at establishing long lasting and close relations with its client base. There is a widely held and at times misguided belief that the more customers a business can appeal to the higher its chances of success and profitability. This might however not be the case as businesses that try to appeal to a wider market segment will spend a vast amount of resources in developing and marketing a variety of products to appeal to its clientele ("Lululemons Growth Through Niche Marketing and Word of Mouth", 2012). Often times businesses that appeal to a wider market base have products that do not fetch high premiums as there are numerous other substitute products in the market that serve the general interests of the consumers.

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There has been a craze about eating healthy and leading healthy lifestyles especially with the advent of lifestyle diseases such as obesity and high blood pressure. Lululemon Athletica, an apparel company, took advantage of this opportunity and ventured into the apparel manufacturing business where it mainly focuses on the design and production of yoga clothing. As other businesses focused on other avenues of the health sector such as weightlifting equipment and pharmaceutical products, this form opted to design, manufacture and distribute sporting apparel ("Marketing Strategies from Lululemon", 2015). The companys primary target consumer is the educated, sophisticated woman who wants to lead a healthy lifestyle. These are the women who seek to strike a balance between career and family, who strive to achieve a state of balance between work, life, and their health.

The company has adopted a sales strategy where it operates through two segments in distributing its products to its target market: stores that are owned by the company and direst-to-consumer strategies such as sales through the internet. It generates its sales revenue through showrooms, warehousing sales and its various outlets located at different parts of the world such as Canada, Australia, Singapore, New Zeeland and the United Kingdom. The company has a strong brand loyalty owing to the unique design of its products that deliver comfort to its consumers. The companys products still fetch high premiums as it targets career women who are relatively wealthy and have a high regard for their health. The company also designs apparels that can be worn not only at the gym but also when doing errands in town (Hornor, 2016). The increasing need for casual clothing among the American population has made the firms products even more appealing.

The success of this niche marketing strategy adopted by the firm is clearly seen by the healthy financial status of the firm. This healthy financial state has attracted deep-pocketed suitors in the industry such as Nike and Under Armour which expressed their interest in taking over the firm. Sales revenue generated in 2015 amounted to $2 billion, with more than 70 percent of this coming from the United States market (Dalavagas, 2016). The wide geographical coverage of the company is also a good advantage for the firm as it is able to serve the needs of its target market on a global scale. This perhaps explains why the company had not paid out dividends to its shareholders; with impending plans to expand to frontier markets to further boost growth.

References

Dalavagas, I. (2016). SWOT Analysis: lululemon athletica inc.. Valueline.com. Retrieved 11 September 2016, from http://www.valueline.com/Stocks/Highlights/SWOT_Analysis__lululemon_athletica_inc_.aspx#.V9UrXTUq_IU

Hornor, T. (2016). Which is More Effective: Mass or Niche Marketing?. Small Business BC. Retrieved 11 September 2016, from http://smallbusinessbc.ca/article/which-more-effective-mass-or-niche-marketing/

Lululemonas Growth Through Niche Marketing and Word of Mouth. (2012). marketinggenius605. Retrieved 11 September 2016, from https://marketinggenius605.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/lululemons-growth-through-niche-marketing-and-word-of-mouth/

Marketing Strategies from Lululemon. (2015). Jon Taffer. Retrieved 11 September 2016, from https://jontaffer.com/marketing-strategies-from-lululemon-a-billion-dollar-empire/