Analyzing Myer Australia's Marketing Management Practices Essay.

Mission Statement and Slogans

Myers operates in the retail industry which generally includes the higher level of competition as due to larger in size (Matsa, 2011). In 1911, Myer brothers established this departmental store in Australia. From then onwards, the company has expanded in more than 64+ locations considering all Australian states.

The aim of the company is to focus on greater investments into their best stores and most valuable customers.  They also need to enhance merchandise and increase the superiority in the shopping experience to achieve the customer needs effectively. For this, they have to meet several challenges faces in the retail industry.

The mission statement of Myers Australia states that it wants to become the trusted resource all over the globe in order to gain success among all the local retailers (Hayward, 2013). The company also stated that Myer Market is a platform for all Australians to discover international lifestyle brands and entrainment at one place. This platform is also a user-friendly shopping destination which is managed by the Australia biggest Department store.

The company use distinctive strategy for the customer awareness by using of slogans which help them in connecting with the customer on a continuous basis. For example – “There no other store like Myers”.

Myer Australian makes continuous investment in the digital strategy so that to target customers and also make strong customer experience towards the brand (Lin, Huang and Tseng, 2007). The CEO of Myers also stated that they are working on four pillars of strategy which is based on customer led offers, wonderful experiences, Omni-channel shopping and a productivity step change. This plan needs the investment of around $600 million which is divided into five year transformational plans. This gives them significant opportunity to make deepen their relationship with the customers.

In the current phase, Myers is specialised in 11 main product categories which includes Women swear, Menswear, Miss Shop, Cosmetics, Accessories and handbags, Intimate apparel, Homewares, Toys, Electrical goods Children wear and General merchandise. This shows that Myers has a strength of diversification in their product line which also provides the company a competitive edge in the retail industry (Newell and Peng, 2007).

This analysis is a marketing framework, which help the organization to evaluate the environment in which they operate. The include –

• Company – In respect to company, the internal and external analysis need to be made which can be done with the help of SWOT tool. In this tool, a company can evaluate their internal environment by finding their strength and weakness whereas the external environment can be analysed by focusing on opportunities and threats in the industry (Helms and Nixon, 2010). 

·  Prolific brand identity in the Australian retail industry. ·  Product diversification and quality. ·  Well maintained customer relationship.	· Expansion into the online shopping environment. · Expand the range of services by using customer relationship management applications.
· Customer ambiguity relating with product prices. · Weakening in the product positioning due to the needs of further investments.	· Complexity of the political factors in the environment. · Customer attractions towards online shopping rather than purchasing the products by visiting the stores.

In addition, one of the biggest benefit that is enjoy by Myer is due to their departmental stores which all are available at prime locations of the Australia. This also constitutes as a major strength of the company. In terms of weakness, they have under developed distribution channel, which makes them limited to Australia, and thus do not have global presence. In spite of all these weakness, they have an opportunity as the company can make partnership with the foreign player so that to develop innovative and creative strategies. Although, this will be difficult for the company due to the continuous change in business environment and customer taste and preferences (Mokaya, 2012).

• Customers – The company is offering majority of their product range to the middle class and upper middle class individuals in all cities of Australia. It is hard for the retail departmental stores to target all the segments of customers in Australian due to the dynamic environment as because of this customer taste and preferences are continuously changing. Most of the customer of Myers, Australia is now more conscious about health and fitness (Michaelidou and Hassan, 2008). They used to go for short holidays on most of the occasions and use gadgets considerably. This makes Myers to plan their marketing strategies and promotional activities for their brands.
• Collaborators – With the help of Myers Supplier of the year award, the company distinguish all those brands and designers who help them in providing innovative retail experience to the customers (Ong, 2014). In 2016, Myer key business partner M.A.C and Toni Maticeski was acknowledged as the best designer of the year for making innovation presence in the fashion creations. Other collaborators of Myers includes the advertising agency who gives community assistant to the company and also the Group Managing Director who play a significant role in the creative and innovative process of retail business at Myer.
• Competitors – One of the biggest competitors of Myers is David Jones Limited which is also an Australian departmental store (Goleby et al, 2009). The marketing and competitive strategy of David Jones is giving strong competition to Myers and also David Jones has about 45 departmental stores across whole of Australia. Myer and David Jones follow similar business strategies and that is the reason that they are not reaching to their target sales figures. However, the sales margin is higher in the case of Myer with David Jones but Myer is under more debts compare to its other rivalries. In 2017, the CEO of Myer introduces new competitive pricing policy so that make a competitive edge in the Australian retail industry.
• Context – Various political affect Myers business operation and challenge their policy and strategies. Most of the political development unhappy with GST tax levied on imported goods. The GST applies for imports worth more than $1000 and they believe that this will create an unfair playing field for other local retailers and business. In addition, there is also a question aroused with the cost of GST (for items) and income benefit of the tax. However, Australia is currently governed by a parliamentary democracy and this considers that the business environment will be framed in fairly stable condition and does not have a significant impact on any departmental store industry. In respect with economic aspect, with the increase in the Australian GDP by around 2.27%, there will also increase in the retail revenue. Myer also have a social strength as most of the people who are the customers of Myer have greater spending power because of stable incomes and established careers. In terms of technological aspect, the retail industry in Australia has received medium digitization, which consists of using social media as promotional tool, web advertising and online shopping. Therefore, Myer have various opportunities in the future in terms of technological advancement. The legal aspect of environment can be proved to be a threat for Myer as their operational cost can be increased due to the change in policy of the Australia government relating to 2.4 increase in the minimum wage.

Product Line and Diversification

Myer Australia converts their promotional strategy from price based to consumer-focused promotions so that to target mostly sophisticated customers by giving wide range of products (Gordon, 2012). The company engage many tactics like “Sunday Deals”, “One day Sales” and many more to increase the sales. In the retail sectors, Globalization and disruptive digital innovation also challenge the Myer business and this make Myers to deploy certain necessary strategies with the help of four pillars to bring and rise the shopping experience in Myers. The company also use the Roy Morgan data and do substantial research relating to Australian customer retail segments so that to alter their strategies according to the dynamic business environment (Siahpush et al,  2009). With this research, Myers recognizes three different groups of customers which includes –

• High value consumers who want to up-to-date with the fashion.
• Professional successful customers who have an interest in brands.
• Customers looking for every day value products and affordable fashion.

Myers also gets acknowledge about their rivalries in the retail market who are giving them tough competition. These competitors are David Jones, Zara and Country Road and they all are delivering same types of products in different target markets (Craik, 2015). These departmental stores are also located at several prime locations offering competitive pricing and also influenced the sales of Myers.

Myers research on their current customer base also supports them to gain knowledge of the current context of business environment in the field of globalization, and rise in digital technology. Myers knows that females have dominated the market and it is mainly customer base due to high prices and brand categories. They are also acknowledgeable  that their goodwill and prestige build the floor on which the business stands and thus they try to build strong and long-term relationships with the customers.

Myers appreciates each of their business partners and suppliers. This can be analysed through the Myers reflection when they host the Myers Supplier of the Year award. Myers also measure the role of each suppliers to creates effectiveness in the supply chain. In 2015, Myer Australia gives award to PVYT Heritage Brands as the supplier of the year. PVYT help Myers to connect with various well-known global brand like Tommy Hilfiger, Pierre Cardin and many others (Xu, Gao and Hammond, 2017). This makes supplier to work proactively with full passion by providing innovative products and bring the growth in business. They will also give priority to the organization goal instead of their specific goals.

According to the market analysis of Myers, which includes customers, suppliers and competitors, it can be said that Myer needs to target particular market segments to build an effective marketing strategy. With the help of the research made by Roy Morgan, the customers’ base can be categorised in to three different groups for the retail products. With the research, Myer also recognise that around 80% of sales come from the Omni –channel customer as compare to those customers who buy physically from the stores (Kesselman, 2014). Therefore, it will be recommended that the company should target those customer bases who are belong to Omni channel segment and also takes various necessary steps to accept digital technology as a strategy. With the help of various digital means, the company can provide their customer in-store experience. In addition, once the pilot project is successful, the digital hub can be rolled out for others stores nationally. For implementing this plan, Myer need to recruit chief digital staffs and data officers who can take responsibility to lead this change process.

5 Cs Analysis

It is also recommended to form the value proposition of the local customers with the help of exciting investment in the up gradation of the stores and altering in accordance with the local customers fashion likings. Myer can also form value proposition with the Omni channel customers by bringing changes in their brand makeup and continuous adding new brands to maintain balance in the retail industry (Clark, Harrington and Myers, 2016). Myer always consider customer first before making these relevant changes. They can also add more wanted number of brands in their retail market as this would bring more sales margin. In addition, the company have also scope in the middle class individuals and in the female category  which can also help the help in enhancing the business vision.  Therefore, Sales related marketing strategies and brand building could benefit the company in dealing with the competitors as well as build more customer loyalty base.

Considering target market, “exceptional shopping experience and customer focused offer to sophisticated customers” can also be included in the position statement. Various necessary steps can also be taken by Myer CEO and other retail officers to improve the customer service with the help of alteration in the flagships stores and efficient store management. Myer can focus on low cost and high value product so that to achieve efficient store management (Miller and Merrilees, 2016).

In respect with upgrading of stores, Myers can do alterations in the lighting and ambience of the stores and can also give visual merchandising to online customers. The sales performance of Myer can also be boosted if the company acquire more number of digital services including the up gradation of their websites. Myer can also focuses on the changes relating with productivity such as value sharing future business goals with collaborators and evaluating issue related to occupancy cost and capital investment in each stores.

Myer can also achieve their marketing goals with its high efficient team who are ready to do work in any culture persist in the store. For sporting the system and gaining throughout knowledge of the digital process, the company can recruit skilled and capable employees. They can also provide extensive training to the staff in case of specialised designation. Myer evaluate the progress and ensures the new strategy with the help of various performance metrics and thus measuring the growth within set period of time.

Four major marketing factors affect the growth of the business in any industry. These four factors are also called marketing mix which includes product, price, place and promotion (Martin, 2009). Below are some steps which needs to be considered by Myer in recommendation of marketing strategy.

• Product – Myer marketing strategy based on customer-focused offer which gives the customer a superior and exceptional shopping experience. Myer achieves this strategy with the help of diversification in their product line that satisfy every needs of the target market. Myer used the combination of right product mix which consists of most wanted brands and products fulfilled by strong Omni-channel offer. For raising more target customer satisfaction, the company can invest in brands that give fashion trends as well as value proposition for the product. Myer can also do tie-ups with global and well know international designers that can help Myer in delivering significant control over their business objectives and plans (Bondos, 2017).
• Price – This is also one of the most significant aspect of the Myer marketing objective. With effective pricing strategy, Myer can increased their profitability and sales volume. Pricing strategy can also help in shaping the perception of the product in the minds of customers. To stay ahead of the competitors, their plan will always include affordable pricing with greater value offers to the customers. The company can include many brand in their product segment like French Connection, Nine West and Seed, which help them in fighting the market competition and also save them from the arrival of new players in the retail market as well as online shopping challenges. The company can also build the pricing strategies with the help of effective survey from their customer about the significant things they are looking for while shopping at Myer. The inclusion of well knows brands like ZARA and H&M can also help to target affordable price and fashionable relevance in products (Bhardwaj and Fairhurst, 2010).
• Place – The productivity can be maximised if Myer focuses on the effective placement and distribution of their product. They can also improve their merchandise offer by moving to selective distribution or franchising. Myer already had this competitive advantage as all their departmental stores are located in prime places in Australia. In respect to Omni-channel, Myer can invest in the swift digital technology so that to raise their shopping experience in the internal markets and much larger platforms. This strategy of Myer to focus on superior performance stores can help them in revising their sales figures and the restructuring in the cost of products. Their history represents everything about the Myer as a large departmental store in Australia. Myer can also achieve efficiency in their supply chain and store network if they reallocate their space and fine-tune their merchandise in accordance with the store cluster.
• Promotion – The new marketing strategy of Myer states that the company needs to invest in attracting the new brands in their stores so that they can always stay ahead of their competitors. Promotional strategy of Myer is important as it can enhance the brand identity and thus improves sales. Myer can do effective promotion if they integrate advertising and various techniques of sales promotion. The increase in the digital world, a point-of-scale system can be proved as a significant step for stock management. Enhancing the store network and establishing balance in the digital marketing can also act as a fruitful step for their marketing strategy in relevance with the retail channel. The customers can attract to their new brand if the company use successful promotional techniques like digital marketing, social media websites for reaching all nationwide customers and sales promotion (Tiago and Veríssimo, 2014).

Information Collection using 5 Cs

Conclusion

This report gives insight into the business of Myers includes its product line offered to the customer. Myer is one of the largest retail chains in Australia having more than 60 stores and 130 million-customer base. Myer also operates in a highly saturated market and thus experience difficulty in getting large market share. The critical evaluation of their strength and weakness including the customers and partners deliver an insight view that Myer has an advantage of strong brand reputation but now they are challenged by the new entrants in the markets and the changing customer and preferences needs. For raising their sales volume and keeping up the sustainable demand in the retail industry, it is recommended that Myer should develop a new marketing strategy based on superior customer experience and they also put more efforts on the consumer focused product offer. To be successful in the dynamic business environment, a light has been given to Myer focusing on the key innovative marketing concept in the field of product distribution, promotion and pricing under fashionable products. This can also be proved as a sustainable step in keeping up business demand in the era of digital commerce and globalization.

In addition, the future retail industry heavily involved technology for achieving sustainable competitive advantage and in case of Myer, it can be possible if the company try to enhance the customer satisfactions rather than simply focusing on increasing the product range in their stores.

For achieving sustainable success, the organizational needs to evaluate their mission and vision strategies in according with the needs of the customers. A continuous and constant focus can bring many wonders in the operations of the business. In last, innovative business should be adopted which can benefit both company and the customer.

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