To differentiate and improve performance

  To survive in an apparel market, company needs to adapt itself quickly and efficiently to a change in trends and consumer tastes. Since there is a strong link between spending and emotion, company needs to understand the emotional reasons that affect buying behavior.

   Company needs to be creative, stylish, up-to-date to compete in fashion industry.

   It is also necessary to determine size of the budget. Clearly define expenses is important to see a realistic financial position of the company. Knowing Expenses allow business to create an accurate budget, rather than guessing and overspending each month. If company in fashion industry has quite low budget comparing to others, it is necessary to do production process overseas, or change the fabric and other stuffs to the cheaper one.

   Offering additional services should be considered to remain competitive in fashion industry. The additional services such as personal stylish, customized product or packaging can attract new customer and increase level of customer royalty.

   Media and social network also play a significant role in Fashion industry. An influence of magazines, newspapers, television, and fashion website is result in a change in consumer tastes. Using social media, brands can capture larger audiences, building customer loyalty and connect with their target market more easily and effectively.

Source: http://www.valueline.com/Stocks/Industries/Industry_Analysis__Apparel.aspx 

Market Characteristics

   The market is highly competitive in nature since there are a large number of stores and companies, both public and private. Especially, fashion market trend changes very quickly due to many reasons, such as seasonal changes, media and customer tastes.

   The unique characteristic of Fashion market is the entire production process has to be done as quickly as possible. The speed of production is the major key. Since fashion trends change quickly as season changes and trend fades.

   The consumer demand for high street fashion is uncertain. Therefore, it is important to make sure that production is finished in time and profit is gained before the trends change again.

   Another characteristic of Clothing Industry is clothing is usually designed in one country, yet produced in other countries, which have lower costs.

The overall market of Both brands

   Both companies can be defined as retailing apparel market, which means that both of them design and sell clothing, footwear, and accessories to the end users. 

   They are also classified as High-street fashion industry since they are consistent with the definition of high-street fashion.

   “High street fashion is all about wearing the clothes that walk out on the runway and are casual enough to wear on the street.”

  “High-street fashion is the type of clothes and clothes shops that you would see on your average high street; for example, Topshop, H&M, Zara, or Primark. These shops are affordable for the average person, but also keep up with the fashion trends.” 

Anonymous

    

  The fashion market is competitive in nature. There are a lot of similar brands in market so that it is easy for customer to choose and change their buying habits without paying high switching-cost. 

   The market is highly dynamic. It is market and brand driven, with a wide diversity of individual perceptions and attitudes towards brands and trends. Fashion Segments, a person-level classification, takes account of this diversity to give retailers and manufacturers an insight into their customers and the wider marketplace. 

   The keys to survive in fashion industry is to conduct an analysis trying to describe customer's attitudes towards fashion,brands ,and consumer's behavior.

  

Source:  http://megankingdomfashionstudio.blogspot.fr/2011/05/unique-characteristics-of-fashion.html

              http://www.experian.co.uk/business-strategies/fashion-segments.html

Brief background of the brands- ZARA

ZARA

    Zara is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based in Arteixo, Galicia. It is founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega and Rosalia Mera. It is a chain store of the Inditex group, which is the world's largest apparel retailer that owns many brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Uterque, Stradivasius and Bershka.

    Amancio Ortega opened the first Zara store in 1975 in a central street in downtown La Coruña, Galicia, Spain. The first store featured low-priced lookalike products of popular, higher-end clothing fashions. The store proved to be a success, and Ortega began opening more Zara stores throughout Spain. During the 1980s, Ortega started changing the design, manufacturing, and distribution process to reduce lead times and react to new trends in a quicker way, in what he called "instant fashions". The company based its improvements in the use of information technologies and using groups of designers.

   Zara stores are company-owned, except where local legislation forbids foreigner-owned businesses; In those cases, Zara franchises the stores.

   Zara has many kinds of products. Its store sells women's clothing, men's clothing,shoes,cosmetics and even children's clothing.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zara_%28retailer%29  

Brief background of the brands - H&M

H&M   
 
   Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) is a Swedish multinational retail-clothing company, which exists in 43 countries worldwide.It is founded by Erling Persson. 

   H&M is known for its fast-fashion clothing for men, women, teenagers and children. It is ranked the second largest global clothing retailer, just behind Spain-based Inditex (parent company of ZARA), and leads over third largest global clothing retailer, United States based GAP Inc. 

   One outstanding characteristic of H&M is its collaboration with guest-designer , always be high-ended brand, such as Versace and Lanvin. The campaign is organized since 2004 and it has been very successful.

 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%26M