Competitor Analysis

This paper summarizes findings of the competitor analysis of the chosen companies: The Fancy, Coggles, and M-Wardrobe. Business models of these companies are described with the emphasis put on the competitor's background, competitive advantages, products and target markets, finances, facilities, and marketing strategies.

My-wardrobe

Business Model and Competitive Advantage

-       My-wardrobe.com launched in 2006 is a stylish online luxury fashion store selling fashion items of such famous designers as Joseph, Mulberry, Paul Smith, and Polo Ralph Lauren.

-      Product line includes curated collection of women’s designer dresses, shoes, bags, denim, knitwear and men’s best season coats, shirts, footwear, denims, and knits.

-        Offices in New York, London, Sydney, Oslo and Dubai.

-        Multiple award-winning luxury website.

-        Over 180 luxury collections combined into exclusive and unique seasonal edits.

-        My-wardrobe.com sells only current season collections.

-      In 2011 the company completed repositioning process. Currently it is a content-led fashion retailer applying a brand strapline “Everyday Luxury” instead of “Accessible Luxury ” that is reflexing the “brand ethos” of the company better. Fabulous designer wardrobe items are proposed for any occasion, not just for secular parties.

 

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-     Strong my-loyalty scheme, possibility to get points for every pound the customer spends, gift vouchers, free shipping, complimentary Style Guide, seasonal offers - discounts on the current collections, double loyalty points, allocation of a loyalty tier - Bronze, Silver, Gold or Black.

-        The brand relaunched its website focusing on the magazine-style features with daily news and promoting “click to buy” facilities, online TV content My-TV.

-        The biggest competitive advantage is a provision not only the luxury fashion goods but a supplementary service of getting the style advise. My-wardrobe provides expert consultations of the finest women’s fashion brands as well as fashion video content, style features, updates in social media channels, columns from the My-wardrobe buyers.

-      Developing of smartphone apps and mobile platform to make the shopping process more convenient for the buyers and to enlarge the customer base for the company.

-        Special quarterly print magazine for 10,000 VIP customers.

Target Audience and Target Markets

-   1.3 million visits per month.

-   200,000-strong customer database.

-   Its target audience is 27 to 47 year-old women and men who are successful in the professional realm, have a lot of disposable income, but a little time to go shopping and search for fashion adviser consultation. They do not slavishly follow fashion trends, but prefer to stay informed about the current trends and want to be well-dressed and stylish.

-   Current target markets - UK and US. Priority - Australia, Germany, France, Middle East.

Revenue Model, Financing and Strategy

- In the first half of 2011 the sales grew up to 68 percent. After the introduction of Phillip Lim and Missoni upmarket brands the sales doubled in a one year period.

-  The average customer’s spending is £260.

- Strategic plans of the company are to attract the capital funding to have more premium brands, drive into international markets and improve the product.

- Balderton Capital, the first institutional investor in the company, provided My-wardrobe with $9 million Series A investment round.

-  The technology investment house funded £6m to support company’s international expansion, improve its IT system as well as marketing policy.

- The founder, Sarah Curran, realized the gap between the Asos.com more young and simple market and the too expensive designer fashion from Net-a-Porter. She filled this gap with more sophisticated than Asos but not so extremely luxury as Net-A-Porter online shopping possibility to customers with realistic limits to a family budget.

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- The company plans to enlarge its business scale with the help of further international expansion. Currently, it obtains approximately 20 percent of the total revenue from the overseas market sales.

The Fancy

Business Model and Competitive Advantage

-  The Fancy launched in 2009 is a self-expression social site that switched to the demand-driven commerce model. It provides the opportunity for retailers and vendors to sign up to be a seller of the items fancied on the site.

-  Fancy combined the social sharing model of Pinterest, the visual-forward format of Tumblr and commerce power of Amazon. The biggest difference from the Pinterest is the fact that the user has not only to save pictures of clothing, destinations and other items but the Fancy requires this user to buy the items he/she fancied or at least to purchase some good that is similar to fancied item.  

-  The ideology that Facebook implemented for people, Fancy proposes for objects.

-  Transaction can be conducted right on Fancy.

-  150 million objects are “fancied”.

-  Users have the chance to be inspired by the unusual things they can discover at Fancy, make a unique gift.

-  Fancy is a crowd-curated catalogue of amazing goods, great stores and wonderful places to collect and buy, or share favourite discoveries with all friends.

-  The very stylish website is the wish list, store and a magazine all in one place.

-  Registration - to follow, post or be followed.

-  It is also important that Fancy leaves the place for the discovery not only merchant base operations by posting items that the users found excellent just for creating some trend in the preference of the modern young society.

Target Audience and Target Markets

- Every country worldwide is accommodated by the Fancy’s sales platform. The Fancy ships to commercial, residential FPO and APO addresses as well as P.O. Boxes.

- Cool-hunting users, who find things they like, upload product photo, indicate the price or just form the demand for the particular item.

- 2 million registered users; primarily 18 to 24 year old women, internationally diverse people (44 percent is from the US).

Revenue Model, Financing and Strategy

-  400 brand and retailers, who offer Fancy users discounts.

-  Various items are fancied more than a million times a week at the website.

-  $50,000 per week is average for the past 30 days.

-  Fancy image is promoted by stars tastemakers, including Kanye West, who share their likes for Fancy.

-  The business and marketing strategy of Fancy is not only to create a unique product database but also to send meaningful signals of what does these fancied goods mean to users.

-  Fancy succeeded to combine self-expression, fusing the act of discovery, curation with a marketplace. It is a bold start-up for the future of social media and consumers are increasingly looking to such kind of sites to get inspired, find ideas on products and buy items that became popular.

-  Fancy model is like Pinterest e-commerce model that means that instead of collecting less than 10 percent cut of the transaction by directing the users to the suppliers; Fancy proposes check-out process on-site as well as logistics procedures.

Coggles

Starting the analysis of Coggles, it should be emphasized that the company experienced financial constraints currently and its business model that is described below needs to be restructured to save the business.

Business Model and Competitive Advantage

-  Coggles was founded in 1974 is a premium fashion retailer both as on-line agent operating internationally and is represented by several boutiques in England;

-   It was an innovator in its field, uncovering new designers and brands and establishing high standards of retailing;

-  Over 200 men's and women's designer collections from rare international labels, established fashion houses and emerging designers.

-   Additional curated section at the website containing vintage, books, music, bikes and home proposals, UK's largest street style archive revealing the weekly news from the European fashion weeks.

-   Strong reputation proven by the numerous awards such as Designer Store of the Year,  Inspiring Independent of the Year 2012, Buying Team of the Year, Independent Etailer of the Year.

-   Disadvantage is the absence of size measurements for each item that makes the buyer’s choice more complicated and is the reason for the increased returns.

-   The biggest advantage is a large choice of different brands of high-quality fashion items.

-  Moreover international delivery, periodic seasonal discounts up to 50%, promotional codes with discounts for subscribers, free international shipping.

Target Audience and Target Markets

-  Active young women and men with a great sense of individuality who search for quality of simple design and are time poor but rich on free money to spend on the fashion goods.

-  Customer base is more than 125,000 buyers, 40 percent of which is shopping from abroad.

-  More than 8.3 million visits per year are forecasted.

Revenue Model, Financing and Strategy

-  In 2013 Coggles has gone into administration but the top management hopes that its excellent reputation and a strong brand name will allow finding a good buyer for the business.

-  Financial management of the company is poor whereas it was not able to set an appropriate schedule for the required investments to build brand awareness, open new sales channels, and increase its global marketing budget. It has failed to guarantee a second tranche of £4 million investment.

-  Sales decreased significantly after the new wave of the economic downturn.

-  Business needs to be restructured taking into consideration a tighter cash flow than expected and increased losses.