Market Environment

The following report provides a marketing plan of three years for Boden in UK.  Boden in UK is a clothing retailer and it has been running its operation for almost twenty years. With the help of internet technology, the firm has been able to provide its services to some foreign nations. Boden provides variety of clothes for men, women and children. However, as the market environment has become dynamic, Boden has to make plans for its future to remain sustainable. Therefore, the marketing plan developed in the report discusses the current economical and environmental needs and based on which suitable strategies have been developed. The major purpose of the plan is to understand the current and future market needs and prepare strategies to meet those needs. The plan also considers the future sustainability of the business.

Boden will gain benefits from this marketing plan, as in the industry recent industry report, it is found that clothing market in UK is estimated to grow by 16.6% over the next five years to £51.2bn (Strijbos 2018). Hence, the growth rate is 3.3% stronger than the figure recorded during 2012 to 2017. Nonetheless, Boden pays a significant attention to women clothing; which is a problem to Boden growth because in today’s dynamic market environment, one particular strong section is not enough to remain sustainable. The “focus” must be extended to other areas and thereby, this plan pays attention to two significant Male markets in UK. Here, male market is targeted because, it is estimated that menswear is going to be the fastest growing clothing subsector with the growth rate of 21.2% by 2022 (Ons.gov.uk 2018). This figure outperforms the growth of womenswear by 5.8%.  Nevertheless, choosing two particular target markets is just the first step of the future strategy; now Boden needs to think how the target markets would be approached. Thus, the marketing plan categorizes significant marketing mix elements for each selected market and why and how those elements will be implemented has been discussed further in the plan below.

Summary of an environmental appraisal analysis for Boden in UK market 

The recent article on market analysis published by BBC news indicates that UK clothing sector will expand with a growth rate over 16% within next five years and according to this article the growth ascendency rate is near 4% which is certainly higher than the previous years. However, Kozlowski, Bardecki and Searcy (2012) argued that the market could be driven by inflation with the increasing rate of 2% until 2020, which could further drive up import as well as manufacturing cost.  Kozlowski, Bardecki and Searcy (2012) also mentioned that the margin remains weak, as customers cut because of the squeezed disposal earning and paying more attention to essentials food and grocery. Nonetheless, the environmental state of UK’s clothing sector has been reported with the following strategic tools.

Targeting Male Markets

PESTLE

Political- As put forward by Gardetti and Torres (2017) the year 2016 and the first quarter of 2017 have been a difficult period for the clothing sector in UK. This is because the terrorist attack on France is stopping the suppliers to import, Brexit creating an uncertain stability in the relation of European suppliers with UK and recent volatility in Chinese stock market affecting the world economy (Huang et al. 2013). However, Boden will not have to experience this barrier in its growth, as things are expected to change because the growth will be driven by the increasing influence of fashion. Shoppers expect themselves to be treated with fashion and trends, which eventually drive the growth. Moreover, the large clothing retailer M&S, for example, tends to focus on recent trend in business and consequently, M&S became the market leader (Goworek et al. 2012). Likewise, Boden develop its strategies considering the recent trend and when it comes to trend in clothing sector, young clothing shoppers should be prioritized because young clothing shoppers have the higher frequency of 58.1% of buying clothes (Felgate and Fearne 2015). Therefore, it can be ascertained that Boden could overcome above three political barriers by utilizing the current market trends.

Figure 1: PEST analysis

(Source: Yang, Yang and Zhou 2012)

Economical- As mentioned by Yang, Yang and Zhou (2012), volatility in the Chinese market in last year had an intense impact on clothing sector, which has damaged the confidence of UK’s retailers. However, Dimpfl and Jank  (2016) argued here and insisted on other fundamental economies such as Russia as well as demonetization in India, where the situation is yet to come under control. The import in these two nations did not provide any positive return to UK retailers in 2017 and consequently, situation slows down the growth of sales. On the contrary, Esteve-Turrillas and de la Guardia (2017) mentioned that even though the downturn in Chinese economy was a barrier in growth, the clothing retail sector in UK is hopeful about 2018, because large retail giant Sainsbury observed a growth of 1.9% in market share, which indicates that the situation is changing (Pantano et al. 2017). Thus, adapt to the newly changing economy, Boden needs to understand the “value for money”, which is a significant purchase motivator, especially among the mature shoppers. Thereafter, Boden needs to consider the quality and price. Hence, Bruwer et al. (2014) also mentioned that value for money and quality are the two top drivers.

PEST Analysis

Social- The socio-cultural factor indicates that millennial generation is the major target of all clothing retailers. Eastman, Iyer and Thomas (2013) particularly insisted on the fact that taste and preferences of millennial are very different from the previous generation. Millennial do not just look for convenience, they also want quality products on low price. Therefore, Boden needs to cater to different needs where it could push sales as well as attract and engage customers. Boden also needs to understand the rise of fast fashion, which is the proof of push in the sales.  The strategy of producing trendy clothes at high price is no more a suitable one; Boden should not commit the same mistake like Zara, who only paid attention to high quality fashion (Crofton and Dopico 2012). High quality fashion does not remain as the privilege of higher end consumers, as it has been affordable due to advancement of technology. 

Technological- Retail sector does not face technological barriers because the globalization IT and internet increased the consumption rate of mobile devices. Thereby, Hasanbeigi and Price (2012) mentioned that increasing availability of mobile devices and internet technology is the driver of sales growth. This is because online shopping opportunity developed by retail brands has direct impact on sales. Boden has the opportunity with respect to overseas expansion, as online selling is popular both in domestic and global market. The technology has made it possible to go beyond the boarder and contact a wide customer segment. On the other side, a market research conducted by Gardetti and Torres (2017), indicates that online clothing market is estimated to increase by 53.2% within 2022, which accounts for 34.2% from 13.5% in 2013. Nevertheless, to go with the trend of online marketing, Boden needs to develop its online segments such as delivery, returns and irregular innovation because the online retail brands like ASOS, Amazon and Very.co. uk have become driving force; they developed their own standards with respect to services (Jary and Wileman 2016).

SWOT analysis

Table 1: SWOT analysis

(Source: Burns 2016)

Strength: Even though Boden lags behind in terms of sales, the strong control over its supply chain enable the firm to beat others in the market. It develops a “self-containment” throughout the phases of its supply chain, raw material and distribution. Variety in production is another significant strength of Boden, as it offers more design than its competitors. Moreover, the uniqueness in the product category remains as the force to interrupt the competitors. Rovai (2016) mentioned that compared to other retailers in the clothing sector, Boden is a step ahead in terms of customer loyalty. Since, its inception the rate of customers’ shift did not increase much. Similarly, in external environment, growing fashion trend, speedy-recovery of economy enables Boden to go to its next level.

SWOT Analysis

Weaknesses: Although the quality of products and better adoption of trends to business enable Boden to sustain in the market, lack of street presence, market awareness remain as the core weakness of Boden. The competitors like Sainsbury, Sportsdirect and M&S have high market awareness. In addition to this, Piotrowicz and Cuthbertson (2014) argued that even though the technology is rapidly developing in UK market as well as in global market, Boden does not have any adequate presence in digital environment. Boden developed its online selling segment but awareness in the segment is not effective.

Opportunities- It is found above in the PEST analysis, that the economy is recovering steadily and there is regular response of millennial to current fashion trends. This situation certainly provides innovation opportunity to Boden. This means that Boden could bring innovation to its existing online selling businesses such as targeting few more customer segments with high quality service and products. Moreover, compared to its competitors, Boden lags behind in terms of market share, which means that the firm has the opportunity to penetrate in new markets. Another significant opportunity to Boden is that, M&S has become the biggest loser in 2017 due to dropping market share of 8.2% and this situation is followed by Next, which is forecast to observe decline in share in 2018 with poor trading as well as lack of customer focus (Van den Bergh and Behrer 2016). Thus, Boden could obtain their positions by developing market-oriented standards in terms of trading and customers’ needs.

Threats: The speedy adoption of online selling has created a competitive state in UK’s clothing sector. Gardetti and Torres (2017) insisted on the fact that entry of e-commerce giant Amazon has squeezed the markets of others. Therefore, Boden has to deal with a tough competition even in its online segment.

Two new Male target markets appropriate to Boden in UK market

According to the recent statistic of United Kingdom, the total population of Male in UK is 32, 377, 700 and the percentage of growth of males is 3.9% higher compared to female (Ons.gov.uk 2018). Thus, the major focus of Boden in terms of expansion of market should be male. Particularly, Birmingham and the South East of England have the highest male population. Thus, Boden needs to focus on these regions as its target market for the expansion strategy. However, the selection of these two target markets have been further supported with following approaches. 

Customer profiling

Demographic variables: It is certain that UK’s clothing industry is one of fastest growing industries in the world. Particularly, in the south east of England and Birmingham have the highest employment rate (81% and 77.6% respectively) of males compared to women employment rate 48.9% in Birmingham (Ons.gov.uk 2018). As the rate of education is higher among males and employment rate is also increasing rapidly. Thus, males in these regions have the tendency to try latest and innovative items in each category of goods. In addition, almost 68% of total male population in these two regions fall under the age category between 20-45 years, which indicates that people in this category has high tendency of adopting new trends, as both young and mature shoppers falling under this category (Ons.gov.uk 2018). The average salary of male employees with the experience between 5-9 years in Birmingham is £ 30,756. This figure also indicates that average wages of female with same experience £ 21,098, which is certainly lesser than a male employee withdraws. Moreover, the statistic report indicates that almost 59% of total male workers in South East London work in IT and technology firms in UK (Ons.gov.uk 2018). Therefore, this figure certainly implies that target customers are much aware of the technologies in retail businesses.

Geographic Variables: As put forward by Vardoulakis et al. (2015), compared to other regions, Birmingham remains cold for almost 7 to 8 months of the year and such variation in weather enables people in those regions to wear warm clothes. Thus, male shoppers tend to look for warm and trendy winter clothes. However, the temperature remains little warmer in South East London compared to Birmingham. Thereby, the preference of clothes differs from each other among the male shoppers in these two regions of UK. On the other side, as the technological advancements reach the entire United Kingdom, shoppers have the options for online shopping; consequently, the number of visits to outlet is decreasing (Liu, Burns and Hou (2013). Particularly, clothing shops with traditional selling practices in the remote areas of the Birmingham are not able to gain adequate amount of customer attention.  However, female shoppers have the tendency to visit the outlet and try items before buying but due to high engagement in employment, male shoppers hardly pay visit to outlet.

Behavioural variables: As put forward by Parment (2013.) people in Birmingham and South East of England tend to follow the current trends and rather they can be called “Fashion Trend Pursuer”. Thus, to meet the needs of those shoppers, Boden should adopt the recent and future trends of fashion and apply them to product development. In addition, the male shoppers in Birmingham are more conscious about the brand, which means they usually choose high-profile brands with the belief of receiving high quality. Ordun (2015) mentioned that shoppers, especially the millennial mostly prefer an urban appearance in clothes but at the most reasonable price. Thus, trends and quality are the top criteria of acquiring shoppers’ attention in Birmingham.

Besides the trends and quality, people throughout UK are more accustomed to technology and now they can compare the quality and price of the product with other brands. This technological facilitation has now turned into a characteristic as National Statistic UK 2015 reveals the buying behaviour of clothes shoppers, where it is learnt that when buying clothes, 30% of the consumers have mentioned that they tend to research products online before buying in store (Ons.gov.uk2018). On the other side, only 11% of the shoppers mentioned that they shop with friends. From this particular figure, it can be mentioned that technology has high impact on male shoppers in UK.

Figure 2: Shoppers’ behavioural characteristics in UK

(Source: Ons.gov.uk. 2018)

Additionally, national statistics of United Kingdom also reveals the data that almost 81% of the shoppers in South East part of England mentioned that they sometimes tend to look at the products in outlets and then subsequently go online to search the best price. A market research conducted by (Liu, Burns and Hou 2013), mentioned that most popular day for searching online and doing shopping is Sunday and the least popular day is Friday.

Figure 3: Customer behaviour and online buying practice

(Source: Ons.gov.uk. 2018)

Apart from this statistical figure, one more significant characteristic found in the male shoppers of the target markets is that as most of the people are employed, they have the tendency to go on party and personal meeting. Hence, they often wear party wears and some similar dresses. Thus, Boden needs to think of this characteristic while approaching the shoppers of the target market.

Justifying why the target markets are appropriate for Boden, UK

The above-mentioned target markets for Boden are appropriate because compared to any other cities or states in UK, Birmingham and South East part of England has the highest male population. On the other side, population of female in UK is higher than the male; thereby, a large population of female crowd at the clothes outlet; thereby, targeting those markets will not be effective as competitors like Sainsbury and M&S have already acquired those regions.  Moreover, as quality and price are the top criteria of acquiring UK shoppers, thereby, disposable income of target customers is a significant factor that Boden needs to consider. So, statistic shows almost 81% of the males in Birmingham are employed with the average salary of £ 30,756 (Ons.gov.uk. 2018).  Certainly, Boden could gain a significant return from its high quality products from the target market as due to high disposable income; the customers’ financial profile could fit the pricing strategy of Boden.  

Another significant reason for choosing Birmingham and South East of England is increasing use of technology. Discussion indicates that Boden developed online selling practice for its shoppers but it is not implemented properly. So, for the target market, this section can effectively be implemented as almost 71.9% of adults of the total population in Birmingham are internet users and this is followed by 79.4% in South East part of England (Ons.gov.uk 2018).  This statistical figure indicates that Boden could make a high use of technology in the selected markets for its clothes items to grab customers’ attention. Furthermore, Birmingham and South East part of England are appropriate for Boden market development strategy because most of the products of Boden are winter clothes; and the average temperature of the selected markets remain around 8 to 9 degree C and thereby, the atmosphere is suitable for the products developed by Boden.  

Positioning strategy

As put forward by Kapferer (2017), when positioning a particular product, the key factor is to decide what sustainable competitive advantage is there against the competitors. Thus, it is necessary that product have some unique offering that competitors do not have. For example, the retail giant Tesco in UK offers loyalty card to its customers and the loyalty cardholders receive an additional discount on some products, which is unique from competitor ASDA and Morrison. Thus, Boden needs to develop a unique strategy to gain competitive advantages. For example, as the impact of online selling is high in the target markets, the brand could develop referral strategy to increase loyal customer base.

 This means if a customer refers the brand or a newly arrived item of the brand to at least three friends and if those friends purchase the item, in the next purchase the individual who refers, can buy an item free. This strategy works as promotion of production and scope for increasing loyal customer base and if Boden is able to keep its quality, the shoppers could grow the habit of purchasing from Boden only. Even though, the above presented graph shows that only 4% of the shoppers use social media tools to recommend what they have bought, Boden needs to consider the fact that the use of social media tools is increasing rapidly among the people in UK due to the high availability of mobile phone devices. Thereby, focus on referral strategy could be effective. 

Type- As opined by Kim and Hall (2015) products positioning typically falls into some particular categories, for example, functional positioning resolve the issues and provide customer with significant amount of benefits. Therefore, if Boden’s winter garments are made of weather friendly, it certainly appeals to a symbolic position, which is the consumer value. Another category is, if the brand offers garment-oriented cleaner liquid with the product, the consumers do not have to think of selecting a cleaner liquid and so, this offers consumers a sensory stimulation. In addition to this, Boden could offer these two categories together to generate sustainable advantages.

Solution- As mentioned by Anesbury, Winchester and Kennedy (2017), a small tool can be used to establish a positioning strategy for the product or service, which can be considered as the USP (unique selling positioning). Hence, this USP helps to identify and communicate Boden’s most compelling deals and provides benefits in a way that answers’ customers’ questions. Nonetheless, Kim and Hall (2015) argued that it is certain that Boden has been in the business for almost twenty years; thereby, the dependency of the brand is not sufficiently unique to stand up against the rivals. However, if Boden offers an on-time delivery service in its online selling segment, it could be evidently effective than competitors.

Time Frame: As argued by Steenkamp (2017), positioning strategy should not be considered static, as market demands change. For example, the competitor M&S changes its offering, the business environment changes or the product positioning of Boden may prove to be marginal, it must have to rethink about its strategy. However, for coming two years, Boden could go ahead with customer referral strategy.

Marketing mix strategy for the market Birmingham 

It is certain that Boden cannot just develop a new clothe item and offers the target customer, which could increase the risk for customer acceptance. Thus, Boden needs to approach the customers with the products that are relevant and similar to their recent trends and culture. It could modify the existing regional products and approach the target customers.

Product:

Product Objective:

• To meet the growing needs of shoppers
• To maintain a standard in quality at the affordable price

Boden offers a wide range of high quality winter clothes for male shoppers of Birmingham. The products are designed in house by the team of specialists. The product items are directly sourced from supplier. While developing the products, Boden pay attention to quality and modern design demanded by consumers. As the above-mentioned geographic variables indicate that Birmingham is naturally cold and temperature remains around 8 to 9 degree Celsius, the major focus should be on the winter garments. On the other side, the behavioural characteristics of shoppers indicate that males who are employed individuals in Birmingham have the tendency to go on a party on weekend. Thus, Boden could develop trendy party wear for gents. In addition to this, another factor, which should be considered while manufacturing new product items, is high employment rate, which means people are involved in regular work at office. Considering this factor, Boden should design high quality formal clothes so that people could wear on Monday to Friday.

Price

Price Objective: To gain the highest return against the cost of operation within a short period

As Boden offers a wide variety of clothes items and pricing should be based on the quality and availability of items. Therefore, the firm needs to select two categories of pricing such as penetrative pricing and skimming pricing.  As the firm is entering a new market, it needs to increase its customer base. So, by implementing penetrative pricing, it could set low price without compromising with quality. In this context, Keiser, Garner and Vandermar (2017) commented that when the high quality products are available at the low price, customers do not think of the brand; they rather pay attention to what they are getting. Likewise, the customers will increase trust on the brand.

On the other side, to implement skimming pricing, Boden has to set high price for few particular items. Such mixed pricing strategy would help to receive response from a diverse group of customers (Bocken et al. 2016). Skimming pricing would not be any challenge for the customers, as a large proportion of male population has high disposable income. So, if the quality of the product matches shoppers’ needs, price remains as the secondary concern, which does not have much impact on shoppers. This mixed pricing strategy is justified for Boden because such pricing would help the brand to distinguish itself from its competitors by differing price based on the quality and availability of items.

Promotion

Promotional objective

To maximize the  use of digital media channels to reach customers in short time

The behavioural characteristic of shoppers of Birmingham discussed above indicates that technology has high impact on the region.  Thus, to promote its products, Boden should use digital media channels. The statistical data presented above indicates that almost 71.9% of adults of total population use internet on a regular basis, which means a large percentage of the shoppers, are active on social media channel.  Boden could use popular social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Netflix for advertising its products for the target market Birmingham, UK. Especially, it could use Facebook to point customers the store location. This would help to remind customers about the store whenever they go close to the outlet or the nearby location of the outlet. On the other side, on some digital marketing channels, the brand could advertise its products by setting deals and offers. For example, special weekend offers for the shoppers would be given. The deals and offers should be given on Saturday and Sunday because the browsing rate is high in these two days, as people have week-off.

Place

Positional objective:

To generate high market exposure and deep market penetration

Birmingham is a large city with highest population of males and high percentage of internet users is also found in the city. Therefore, Boden needs to consider both online and offline strategies for placing its brands and products. The brand has its own online selling channels, which should include the target market. Behavioural characteristic indicates that almost 92.3% of males use cell phone devices, which certainly create the scope for online selling. Besides brand’s own online selling channels, it should develop partnership with some large e-commerce vendors to sell its products.

 For example, the Nike sells its products through by contacting some e-commerce vendors but it also its own online selling channel. Therefore, to increase the revenue, Boden should try all possible channels, at it eventually helps to generate market exposure. On the contrary, an outlet at the downturn of the city is also necessary because Bilgihan (2016) mentioned that when a new brand enters the city and create high exposure, the customers often look for the real presence.  Moreover, if customers have doubt or they face any issue during online purchase, they can contact the department at the outlet for their grievance or any other issue.

Marketing mix strategies for South East of England:  

Product:

Product objective:

To increase market share by acquiring a large customer base in the target market

Product: For reaching the shoppers at South East of England, Boden needs to develop a large range of products.  Geographical variables discussed above indicate that South East of England is colder than Birmingham where people mainly use winter clothes. Thus, Boden should develop latest and trendy warm clothes such as Jacket, Blazer and others. Due to increasing employment rate, economical situation is presently stable at the South East of England, which eventually increase customers’ tendency to buy high quality products. Therefore, Boden should maintain quality in its product portfolio. Moreover, due to high employment rate in the market, people maintain a high profile in their life style, which increases the demand for top quality products. Moreover, South East of England has people of different social and financial classes. Thereby, the product development strategy of the brand should be based on classes of people. This is because, for example, men whose average salary is lesser than £15,000 would not go for luxury items; so for the people of those classes, separate items should be developed (Bilgihan 2016).

Price:

Pricing objectives:

To set high price to increase product value and meet customer needs

Due to high employment and education rate, South East of England is economically stable. Thus, at the time of making purchase decision, the shoppers only focus on the quality of products and low price in this market stands for the symbol of poor quality. Thus, to gain customers’ trust in such stabilized market, Boden needs to set premium pricing for its clothes items.  This would help to make buyers convince about the value of the products. High price would not be any challenge for the customers because people in South East of England adopted the culture of “buy now, pay later”, which means the money is borrowed by credit cards.  Moreover, Steenkamp (2017) mentioned that when the brand has a high price strategy for products, it also needs to have convenient methods of payment.

Additionally, people in England have a busy-life culture; thereby, they do not prefer to pay cash while buying items. So, besides online selling, online payment method is a practice that Boden needs to consider. By applying a premium pricing strategy, Boden could gain competitive advantages by fending off its competitors in the marketplace. This could be done by money as well as energy into the advertising premium-brands goods. This strategy helps Boden to make the path difficult for new businesses to enter the same market with equal amount of investing. Here, Boden has to think of the new competitors because due to technological advancement, the business with any size and structure can enter the market through e-commerce. Nonetheless, the pricing could be a factor, which could stop them from gaining popularity. 

Promotion

Promotion Objective

To focus on high profile customers and increase customer base

South East of England is a wide market and the economy is recovering rapidly, so the number of high profile customers is high in the market. Thus, Boden needs to approach those customers by implementing long-term digital activities. The target buyers are highly accustomed to technology; thereby, the attempt to approach the buyers through technology would be an easiest way to implement. Firstly, the existing online selling channel is not sufficient to promote the products; Boden needs to develop a Smartphone app called “Bordapp” for selling its products. The statistic report shows that Smartphone penetration rate in South East of England is 61.9% (Ons.gov.uk. 2018); so, people have the tendency to shop from their cell. Boden.  The firm needs to send notification about the products, deals, new arrivals to the target customers.

 Particularly, to increase customer engagement to the app, buyers should be informed about the new arrivals and special deals on every weekend. When the buyers create the account on “Bordapp”, they can avail the free delivery deal for two months on all orders.  Free delivery strategy for first two months help the brand to influence customers’ buying behaviour. However,  Turban et al.  (2017) mentioned that many e-commerce giants have the same free delivery option to retain customers. However, the uniqueness of Boden’s two month of free delivery strategy lies in the quality of product. The competitor probably has the same strategy but Boden could beat Amazon in terms of quality.  

Positioning

Positioning objective:

To provide customers with an unique experience of shopping

In order to position the product in the South East of England, Borden needs to use an Omni-Channel marketing strategy where it can use both offline and online medium of selling and placing the product.  South East of England is a large market with increasing number of big shopping malls. Thus, Boden could contact the crowded malls where the number of customers’ visit is comparatively higher than others. The outlet needs to be established near the front gate of the mall to attract customers. In addition to this, to create place the product online, Boden should develop a separate online selling channel with the head-quarter at the target market only.  When the customers will know their e-commerce vendor has a physical presence near where they stay. This would help customers to reach the department to share their problems if any. Likewise, the customers will develop a sense of trust on the brand.

The perception of the store is also important, which should be affected through five different senses such as seeing, hearing, smelling, testing and touching. According to Kim, and Hall (2015), these five elements make personal choices; so, physical presence of the store is important. It is certain that in a trendy market like South East of England, when it comes to choosing clothe, people likely to have their favourites. If Boden develops a unique design of store, the customers will look at first at the store and pay a visit inside. Here, emotional aspect of buyers remains as the big part of shopping experience.  The storefront should be designed based on four different elements mentioned below.

Figure 4: Atmosphere selection for positing the brand

(Source:  Kim and Hall 2015)

The above-presented elements help to design buying environment and generate a particular feeling for shoppers that maximize the consumption intention.

Conclusion

The above presented discussed helps to ascertain that Boden lacks appropriate strategies to establish itself in the market due to some external factors. The demand of its fashion and clothing is high in all markets but due to increasing presence of competitors and dynamic market environments, Boden finds it difficult to establish itself. However, marketing plan provided in the report could help to overcome the external market challenges and create high market exposure. United Kingdom is technologically developed and the entire nation follows the trend; thereby, it is little easy for marketers to overcome the marketing challenges. The environmental analysis implies that target markets have highest male population with the increasing rate of employment, which further indicates that people have a high-profile image. As the consumption of technology is comparatively higher than any other state of cities, Boden has been suggested to leverage the technology. UK has an increasing consumption rate of technology, thereby; Boden might not face any significant barriers for promoting its products and services.

In addition, penetrative pricing strategy for Birmingham would help the brand to create high market awareness in the shortest time. However, market analysts believe that low pricing strategy in an economically developed market increases the chance of being mistreated by consumers. The consumers might doubt on the quality as the rivals charge high price. Nevertheless, once the buyers purchase the brand, they might change their perception, as quality has also been suggested as the strategy. SWOT analysis conducted in the report helps to observe that a rival such as M&S in the target market is losing their market share, which provides a significant opportunity to come in front.  Thus, both the markets provides similar type of market expansion and penetration strategies for Boden but, the clothing industry in UK has been dynamic in terms of test and preference. Therefore, Boden cannot rely on one single strategy; it has to change its plan and approaches on the basis of market responses. 

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