Do Business Well

This subsection was kindly supplied by Laura Pegg and David McLaverty, Brunel University.

Background

River Island currently occupies 300 high street stores, with 200 of these situated in the United Kingdom. This fashion-conscious chain of retail stores has as its target market both males and females aged 18-35. It is a privately owned company that currently relies on high street sales, encouraged by the River Island Account Card and a limited paper catalogue published twice-yearly. Currently River Island works with a company called Zendor, which supplies all the core end-to-end fulfilment services such as warehousing, distribution, call centres and returns management. The company Web site is basic and does not currently support e- Commerce transactions.

River Island’s main competitors are Next and Topshop, which collectively cover the same segments of the retail market. Both of these major fashion retailers have fully enabled e-Commerce Web sites. Next has also developed a sub-brand called Next Directory, which is a well-established mail order catalogue.

Objective

River Island aims to catch up with its major competitors, which have been quicker off the mark in establishing multi-channel operations. The benefits of being a market follower in this respect centre upon the ability of the firm to learn from the mistakes of early adopters of e-Commerce.

The company also aims to integrate a store-wide intranet that will provide staff with the latest information regarding the products, mark-downs, sales, memos and previews of next season’s fashions. The rationale for this is that effective internal communications will boost staff confidence and morale, which in turn will translate into a better service to customers.

Strategy

River Island’s chosen online marketing strategy is to develop and implement a fully functional transactional Web site within a year in order to match the achievements of its major competitors in this area and boost brand image and hence sales by offering customers a choice of online and offline channels.

River Island’s marketing mix (Table 10.3) aims to define the methods and tools needed to ensure that the marketing objective is achieved. Both online and offline operations need to function in tandem to allow the marketing objective to be achieved successfully. For example:

• Traditional media such as local radio, newspapers, magazines and posters will not be forgotten.
• Store card customers will be mailed with the Web site address and specific promotional offers.
• All bags, stationery and receipts will carry the Web site address.
• Competitions will be run via in-store leaflets that require customers to access the Web site to enter.
• Online banner advertisements and affinity marketing will be commissioned with complementary sites such as Boots, Handbag and New. Women.
• Offline PR will focus on providing press releases to specialist magazines and newspapers.
• An ‘opt-in’ online newsletter will provide registered customers with special deals such as invitations to sale previews.

Evaluation and control

Continuous monitoring and analysis of the site will take place to ensure that all areas of the Web site are functioning properly, eventually leading to site customization, providing opportunities to make the site more efficient.

It is also important to monitor emerging technologies that could prove useful additional channels to market. Possibilities include support for m-Commerce and General Packet Radio Services (GPRS), which could further expand the customer base, or SMS support, which could be used for notifying customers of new stocks or special deals. VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) is another interesting technology that may prove useful, enabling customers to contact the company with a query in real time while still online. PDA support is another possible growth area.

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