The Online Women’s Clothing Industry

1. The Online Women’s Clothing Industry By Yucheng Hu, Yimin Jiang, Andrew Jones

2. Major Players in Online Women’s Clothing

3. A Sample Front Page

4. Basics • Consumers Sign up online with clothing stores • Can shop anytime anywhere that they have access to web interface • Log in, select clothes, pay using a credit card, and arrange for shipment

5. A Sample Signup Page

6. A Sample Clothing Store

7. Women’s Clothing • Who are the customers • Victoria’s Secret and Esprit primarily target middle and upper class women. They also try to attract male customers who are purchasing gifts for women. • Eddie Bauer, Gap, Land’s End, and J.Crew sell both men’s and women’s clothing. So their customers come from both groups. • These online clothing stores hope to take advantage of the customers they do not reach with their mall presence.

8. Women’s Clothing • Gap’s Philosophy is “A simple formula drives our brands: We strive to deliver style, service and value to everyone—kindergartners and grandparents, students and professionals, athletes and philosophers, big-city urbanites and small-town folks.” (Source: http://www.gapinc.com/about_us/about_us.htm)

9. Women’s Clothing • How do they attract customers • Referrals (J.Crew, Land’s End have affiliate programs) • Word-of-mouth and advertising (all, e.g. Land’s End offers Land’s End Live, Shop with a Friend, Your Personal Model for Women, etc.) • Eddie Bauer has a presence within Yahoo! (shopping to gain customers) • Promoting online sites in stores and catalogs (all) • Membership (e.g. Club Esprit), an easy one step process to order items from catalogs (all)

10. Women’s Clothing • Value added • The basic value proposition is helping customers to buy clothes easily • Offer free registration and provide member discounts (Esprit, J.Crew and Banana Republic) • Mail free product information to members (All) • Provide members wish-lists to record their preferences and remind them (Eddie Bauer, Gap, Land’s End and Esprit) • Offer “One-click” service for easy checkout (All)

11. Women’s Clothing • Additional value added • User can check order and delivery status online (Victoria’s Secret) • Refer customers to alliance partners (Banana Republic refers users to Gap) • Create personalized 3-D model for individual customers using exact measurements (Land’s End)

12. Women’s Clothing • Additional value added • Offer buyers related product information and purchase suggestions (Land’s End) • Establish affiliate programs with other web sites, random users get more opportunity to visit stores (J.Crew, Esprit and Land’s End) • Deliver products to multiple addresses for each order (Banana Republic)

13. Women’s Clothing • Sample delivery prices: • Two-dimensional delivery options (time vs. order value) • Eddie Bauer ( Order<$30, 5 days-$2.95, 3 days-$8.95, 2 days-$14.95; order increase every $30, add $2) • Gap (<$50, 7 days-$5, overnight-$14; increase every $50, add $2) • Esprit (<$25, 10 days-$5.95, 4 days-$11.95, 3 days- $15.95; increase every $25, add $1)

14. Women’s Clothing • Try purchasing at the online stores • Easy navigation within the site • Rich additional information about products (J.Crew, Eddie Bauer provide clothing care tips) • Frequent on-sale and promotions to get potential customers to try • First time user introductory discounts (Banana Republic) • Online jeans-design contest to attract users (Gap) • Cumulative purchase discounts (Banana Republic)

15. Women’s Clothing • Turning one-shot customers into repeat customers • Creating incentives to attract current customers • Holiday savings • Email updates on clearance sales or special offers • Customers are committing to an on-going relationship due to excellent customer service • Satisfaction guaranteed (e.g. merchandise returnable within six months at Victoria’s Secret) • Encouraging customers to make wish lists • Customers will come back to follow up on the wish list