Topshop Case Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Topshop Case Study - Essay Example trendy, moderately-priced apparel (Biesada, n d) that has grown remarkably from humble beginnings to 300 stores in the UK and over 100 in international territories. The brand gained its iconic status in 1994 when it took over a 90,000 square feet space at London Oxford Circus where it remains to date (â€Å"About Us - Topshop,† 2011). The London Oxford Circus shop alone attracts over 200,000 shoppers per week and as such has earned Topshop the accolade to be considered as the world’s largest fashion store on the high street. Topshop’s phenomenal success can be traced back to 1985 when Jane Shepherdson, then the director of Topshop, decided to take the company in a new direction. Jane put up a team of 16 stylists and made them travel the world in search of new fashion ideas. This team moved from trendy neighborhoods, to catwalks to flea markets in places as diverse as Tokyo, Paris and New York looking for fashion trends to interpret (Coco, n d). Using the un ique ideas they had encountered Jane’s team of stylists revolutionalized Topshop into a fashionable and trendy boutique. Since 2000, Topshop’s covetable collections have been made available over the Internet through www.topshop.com, which draws tens of thousands of anxious shoppers. Topshop is owned by Arcadia Group, UK’s largest privately-owned clothing retailer. The Arcadia Group owns six other high street best-known fashion brands namely: Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Burton, Evans, Wallis and Miss Selfridge. Cumulatively Arcadia Group has more than 2,500 outlets (â€Å"About Us,† n d). Topshop is their flagship brand. All the same, as the global economy is recovering from the recession, the fashion industry is experiencing intense rivalry. Sir Philip Green, the owner of Arcadia Group, believes that the fashion houses likely to emerge stronger from this current environment would be the ones who are focused on having good store environments, fresh products and ‘newness’, at low prices. Sir Green says, â€Å"It’s not going to be just about price, it’s going to be about ‘price and nice’† (Hawkes, 2008). Does Topshop’s retail strategy encompass â€Å"price and nice†? Industry at a glance The fashion industry has dramatically evolved over the past few decades. Fashion products that used to be luxury items are now considered as basic commodity products and are bought by almost all segments of the society (Mazaira, Gonzalez, & Avendano, 2003). Some of the factors that may contribute to this growing demand for fashion products are the continuous low prices brought about by an increasing number of target markets and transfer of manufacturing sites to developing countries especially in Asia. With an increasing number of players in the industry, the rivalry is intense. Topshop’s main competitors are Zara, H&M and French Connection (Biesada, n d). The fashion industry is also characterized by consumers with a strong buying