New Product Launch Strategy For Oxfam Shop

Product Brief

Discuss about the New Product Launch in Market for Oxfam Shop.

Oxfam Australia is a non-profit organization, which operates through various donations generated by numerous campaigning. Their functionalities include looking for the poor people through the organizational development programmes (Oxfamshop.org.au, 2017).

Oxfam Shop is an owned subsidiary of Oxfam Australia, which takes care of marketing for all kinds of food and handcraft products. The marketing consultant of the Oxfam Shop has the responsibility to launch a solid proof strategy for their proposed Straw Hat in the market (Oxfamshop.org.au, 2017).

Keeping the social consent of the Company intact, a group of marketing personals have teamed up together to launch Straw Hat in the market. The market launch of the product requires certain marketing processes, which helps in preparing the best way; a company can adopt before a market launch (Mullins, Walker and Boyd Jr 2012). 

Straw Hat is best suitable to those places, which are extremely hotter regions (Mooradian, Matzler and Ring 2012). Moreover, it helps people in saving them from the sunstroke. Nevertheless, some are there who use these hats for the purpose of fashion, especially in the hotter region. Straw hats mainly constitute the straw like materials of different green plants. It is given a designing look, which could attract and please the soul of masses with its sheer charm (Baker 2014).

Objective of the Oxfam Shop with the launch of Straw Hat is to attain some effective position in the market (Parente and Strausbaugh-Hutchinson 2014). Moreover, The Hat Store is the market giants in Australia for numerous kinds of hats. Further, the Company has an enormous experience behind their success in the market. With a span of 30 years, the Company is a serious challenge for the Oxfam Shop (Oxfamshop.org.au, 2017).

It is not easy to compete with the Hat Store in the market. However, a substantial mark is measurable for the Oxfam Shop as they are expertise in the market with other kinds of product (West, Ford and Ibrahim 2015). Moreover, the experience of handling the market, which the Company has, can work wonder in their favour. The marketing consultant is eyeing around 15-20% of market shares for their first quarter.

However, to achieve 15-20% of market shares require some serious effort from the management as this would rely solely on the uniqueness of the product (Dawar 2013). To establish a unique impression and achieve some customer base would require a huge investment from the Oxfam Shop. The Hat Store is offering thousands of varieties to match the requirement of all the classes of consumer. To produce a bulk range of Straw Hat for different segment of customers would require a huge investment, which would rather put additional pressure on the Oxfam Australia (Hall 2013).

Objective (SMART rule)

Oxfam Shops at present have 100,000 manufacturer associates around the globe. The Company always pay half of their payments to the manufacturers in advance. These figures speak about the potential, which the Oxfam Shop has to their credit. A large number of manufacturing partners are capable of producing a huge production of hats. However, involving such a large number of producers from around the world in the project might attract a huge additional expense on the transportation. Running all the operations successfully is the utmost threat for the Oxfam Shop with this new product launch in the market (Oxfamshop.org.au, 2017).

The time span would be around one year to achieve the set objective (Hall 2013). A homogenous operation is the first requirement and once this is achieved, flourishing of the concept would be comparatively easier in the market. Moreover, initial few months are important for a smooth operation of all the shipment of manufactured products.

An internal benchmarking model is best suitable for a new product launch by the Oxfam Shop.

As per the internal benchmark model, the first step is to build up a plan based on analysis of an earlier management operation of the Company (Rolstadas 2012). The Oxfam Australia is engaged in several industries such as clothing, foods & drinks, books, home decor and many more. The Company uses various processes to conduct its operations such as doing campaigning, business partnerships, asking for fundraise and many more. Business partners have played an important role in excelling the Company’s objectives to support the disadvantaged people. Deloitte, Thankyou Group and many more are the business partners of Oxfam Shop, which have supported the Company immensely. JB HI-FI, Studio Thick, Powershop, good2give are those companies, which are supporting the Oxfam Shop through donations. Melbourne International Comedy Festival is the official charity partner of the Oxfam Shop for the last 21 years. However, the Company faced certain criticism for its funding. In the year 2008, a report criticized the Company by stating the fact that the Company fundamentally misguided the funding process. It also stated that Oxfam did not justice on the financial side of the joint deal negotiations. Mode of functionalities of the Company such as fund raising, donation, business partnerships are though technically sound but did face some serious challenge from its competitors in respective product. For an example, the losing battle of the Company from the hand of Aldi is just a mere reflection of the faultiness in its management. However, the Oxfam Australia has flexibility as they responded to the situation and quickly made an announcement of offering certain discounts in its products. Moreover, the step was to fill the gap created by the failure work of the Company in the market (Oxfamshop.org.au, 2017).

Environmental Analysis

Certain flaws in the management as reflected from the example of the clothing industry and the expected competition from the leader of the Straw Hat industry have provided sufficient information and findings. Moreover, these information and findings do indicate a way out of the situation. The best way, which could prevent any further loss to the new product launch, would be to go for a limited expansion of the product (Rolstadas 2012). Products would be first launched for the online sale to grab a hold of its target customers of hotter regions in Australia. This would help in analysing the responses, which the product has fetched and would prevent any unwanted loss it goes through a huge launch of the product. The negative results if that happens would have resulted in a heavy loss to the huge investment. Nevertheless, considering a big threat from The Hat Store and the probable of losing a huge investment, it would be wiser to go for a limited launch of the product for an online sale (Oxfamshop.org.au, 2017).

Segmentation is one of the most important parts of a market plan as it helps in determining the correct set of customers (Huang and Sarigöllü 2014). The targeted segment of the market would be the people living in hotter region. Some uses the hats just for doing fashion however; some are there who use hats to save their head from the sunlight. The perfect target segment for the launch of Straw Hat would be the people living in Sydney, Canberra and many more as these are the hotter regions in Australia.

Targeting is another very important part of a marketing plan, which helps in figuring the correct set of customers comprising of various age categories (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick 2012). Target customers for the product would be the people falling under the age category of 15-65 years. These are the age groups, which used to have outings for respective reasons such as colleges, companies, visiting to locales and many more.

Positioning is another decisive character of a market plan, which helps in avoiding the wastages of products by setting perfect position for the launch (Khan 2014). Positioning would be in accordance to the customer responses for various kinds of hats offerings from different competitors (Helm and Gritsch 2014). Following the footsteps of leader companies in Straw Hat industry, is significantly helpful in positioning the sector for the product. Straw Hat would be first launched for an online sale. A continuous observation on the online sale would encourage for different modes of positioning of the product in the market. A thousand unit sales of different types of Straw Hat within one month of its launch would then encourage the Company to go for retailing and wholesaling of the product across various circuits.

Targeting

Finalising the product before the market launch is the first thing, which gives a platform to the market plan strategies (Brooks and Simkin 2012). Nevertheless, it involves numerous processing and analysis of the market regarding the sustenance of the product. Product would be Straw Hat for the Oxfam Shop as it has immense popularity among people in hotter parts of world. People are using Straw Hat for the purpose of both fashion and health. Straw Hat can effectively save one from the sunstroke of the sunlight.

Pricing is another very important aspect of a marketing plan, which is decisive in penetrating through the market (Barrett and Weinstein 2015). Pricing require certain researches on the market trends regarding the product. There are various influencing factors to the pricing of a product such as market demand, competitors pricing and many more (Yeu et al. 2012). Going by the market trend, Price range would be from AU$9 to AU$102. To compete with the Hat Store, which has already proved their dominion in the market, is not an easy task. The pricing might not produce a healthy profit margin to the Oxfam Shop. However, after the passage of a significant duration in the market, there would be a considerable rise in the pricing.

Place is another very important domain for a market plan, which depends on the target customer (Anitsal, Girard and Anitsal 2012). The target customers for the Straw hat are those who belong to the hotter part of Australia such as Sydney, Canberra and many more. In the hotter region, there is an utmost requirement of protection from the sunlight during the daytime. However, hats alone cannot guarantee of doing all wonder in favour of saving from the sunlight. It indeed plays an important role in protecting head from the direct contact of the sunlight, which is very important for the fact that a direct exposure of head to the sunlight might cause head stroke. All kinds of straw Hat such as Rusty Sea, Collage, Floppy and many more are best suitable for the target place. For fashion purpose, the designed Straw Hat is best suitable whereas for normal life use, the simple Straw Hat made of plant materials is effective.

Promotion is one of the most influential parts of a product launch in the market, which may include various ways of promoting the product (Pour, Nazari and Emami 2013). However, for the product launch of Oxfam Shop, the online mode is best suitable as this is comparatively cost saving. Moreover, to reduce the risk of any unwanted losses, it is very important to choose a cost-effective way to promote the product. The online modes of promoting the product can help in reaching to a mass people at just one go. The only requirement for this kind of promotion is publishing an attractive advertisement on the existing website of the Company. Moreover, it just requires some effort from the team of web designers.

Positioning

Conclusion

The launch of Straw Hat is a new concept for the Company Oxfam shop in Australia. Moreover, it requires some solid marketing plan for the project, which could help in succeeding the desired goal. The biggest challenge in front of the Company is its earlier flaws in management operations and The Hat Store, which is the leading company in this segment of market in Australia. However, the analysis, which the Oxfam Shop has made on its earlier industrial operations and the calculative measures of the market have the potential to foothold the position of the Company in the market. The pricing are comparatively cheaper, which has the potential to leave a strong impact on the market. The Hat Store being the leader in the market for last few years might reduce their pricing even below than the Oxfam offerings to acquire a competitive edge on the rising force. Moreover, it would make life tougher for the Oxfam as being flexible with pricing is not an easy task at the very beginning of the market launch of the product.

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