Page 135 - CITS - Dress Making - TT - 2024

DRESS MAKING - CITS

Lesson 10 - 12 (2) : Apparel marketing

Objectives

At the end of this lesson you shall be able to
• understand marketing and classification of markets
• identify a trend and recognize its movement in local markets as affected by global market
• know about Retail business and management.

Market
Market is a group of potential customers or place or area in which buyers and sellers assemble.

Marketing
Marketing is a series of activities that fashion businesses undertake so that customers will buy products from
them instead of their competitors. Marketing is the process of developing, promoting, and distributing products to
satisfy customers’ needs and wants.
Sourcing
Through the internet, apparel manufacturers and retailers can source fabric and finished goods throughout
the world. This is used for small and medium sized companies also to access worldwide which was previously
available to only larger counterparts. This is used for the buying and designing of apparel and finished goods.

Changing trends in Fashions
The fashion apparel industry has significantly evolved, particularly over the last 20years, when the boundaries
of the industry started to expand. The changing dynamics of the fashion industry since then, such as the fading
of mass production, increase in number of fashion seasons, and modified structural characteristics in the supply
chain have forced retailers to desire low cost and flexibility in design, quality, delivery and speed to market.
In addition to speed to market and design, marketing and capital investment have also been identified as the driving
forces of competitiveness in the fashion apparel industry suggested ‘sense and respond’ as the key strategy to
maintain a profitable position in the increasingly dynamic and demanding market. A key defining characteristic of
rapid responsiveness and greater flexibility, in this context, is to maintain closer relationships between suppliers
and buyers. Looking at the basic structure of the fashion industry until the late 1980s, traditionally fashion apparel
retailers used their capability of forecasting consumer demand and fashion trends (known as ready-to-wear)
long before the actual time of consumption in order to compete in the market. However, recent years have seen
fashion retailers compete with others by ensuring speed to market with their ability to provide rapidly the fashion
trends revealed by fashion shows and runways. Such retailers could be credited with the adoption of quick

fashion’ that is an outcome of an unplanned process on the reduced time gap between designing and consumption
on a seasonal basis.
Today’s fashion market is highly competitive and the constant need to ‘refresh’ product ranges means that there
is an inevitable move by many retailers to extend the number of ‘seasons’, that is, the frequency with which the
entire merchandise within a store is changed. With the emergence of small collections of merchandise, fashion
retailers are encouraging consumers to visit their stores more frequently with the idea of ‘Here Today, Gone
Tomorrow. This indicates a shorter life cycle and higher profit margins from the sale of fast selling merchandise,
skipping the mark down process altogether. Several studies have examined various aspects of the buyer-supplier
relationship with quick or fast fashion, such as the apparel design relative to quick response, the role of the
supplier in fast moving fashion, buyer behavior, and financial performance.
Classification of Markets
1 Domestic Markets: If the marketing is done with in the country then it is called as Domestic Market.

2 International Market: If the marketing is done from one country to all over the world then it is called as
International Market.

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