Sports Oriented Brand

Detail the strategy your team has selected to work on for Ross

Our strategy for Ross is to extend a category of merchandise, we’d like to extend athletic wear, provide more variety in this section and include more athleisure wear . Ross currently heads an athletic section that is lacking in variety, also the categories don’t have a section for athleisure; categories are currently dresses, jeans, and workwear, nothing in between. Based upon substantial research, athleisure and athletic apparel is extremely popular, with more consumers leading an active lifestyle, incorporating clothing that functions in this day to day lifestyle is essential. Dress pants have become more relaxed and stretchy, dress shirts are more breathable, and footwear has become more practical and functional; slipping on- no laces, wicking. Increasing the athletic section at Ross will directly target their competitor Burlington, who has an extensive range and variety of athletic wear. This could also help target millennials, the leading consumer in athletic apparel, due to their constant active “on-the-go”lifestyles.

2-What financial concerns will this strategy address? Explain and give a substantiated goal to support your strategy.

(Support with substantiated facts)

3-What are the pros and cons this strategy, do pros out weight the cons?

Pros-

• Higher profit: Expanding the athleisure section will give customers more selection to choose from.
• Brands name : Selling brands name athletic wear will attract more customer .
• It would complete the entire apparel offering from Ross, a good category expansion
• The category has been seeing a healthy growth rate, hence an opportunity to grow
• Younger consumers, with purchasing power, driving the trend as they are driven by the desire to be fit and healthy
• Casualization driving the sportswear market. Consumers are opting for comfortable athletic shoes with formal or semi-formal dressing. The impact is visible on the sneaker market.
• The Markup percentage in this segment is pretty good too
• -Little to no additional licensing requirements, the category extension can be smooth for Ross

Cons-

• More investment
• Bigger space to products
• Intense competition in the space with many renowned sports oriented brands with dedicated focus on only sports and athletic wear.
• The threat of Online retail, with Amazon leading the way. Assortment and Price, difficult to match for any brand for that matter.
• Shrinkage is a prominent disadvantage when it comes to clothing and shoe stores. Theft occurs both at the retail store and at the stocking rooms. It is expensive and difficult to track.
• Inventory management is not easy. Predicting the demand in this space is a very difficult task. To add to that, the styles, trends keep changing at a brisk pace. This can lead to large amount of unsold inventory.

4- Write your “Statement of Strategy”

(For example, “By intensifying “x” classifications and by adding “y” classifications, Client Company will be able to improve its annual revenue by __% by 2020.”)

Note: the strategy statement must include a measurable, numeric goal and a completion date. Add any necessary further explanation so the intent of your strategy is clear.

5-Setting the Financial Goal

Instructions for this section can be found in the Course Project Guidelines

a. It must be based on an authenticated benchmark or statistic.

b. Benchmarks should come from companies that are performing well.