Please read prompt thoroughly. All in text citations must include author and page number.
Assigned Readings:
Farnan & Stone: The Dynamics of Fashion – Chapter 9: Women’s Apparel (LO1-4)
Farnan & Stone: The Dynamics of Fashion – Chapter 10: Men’s Apparel (LO 5-8)
Ober, L. (2019, July 29). The Inferno that Transformed American LaborLinks to an external site. [Audio podcast episode] In Spectacular Failures. Minnesota Public Radio. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inferno-that-transformed-american-labor/id1466271396?i=1000445551214
Assignment Overview
The Competitor and Your Retailer’s Strengths/Weaknesses
This assignment covers information you will include in your final project. It relates to CO’s 3 and 6, analyzing your retailer from the perspective of the customer and financial success.
Now that you know more about your retailer, it’s time to compare & contrast how you’re doing vs. the competition. Identifying your strengths and weaknesses will help you determine recommendations of improvement that you’ll include in your final project. If your retailer is great at a specific category or service, make sure you keep it that way. Maybe the competition is taking customers away from you because their website is better. Go to the competitor’s stores and website to see for yourself.
The Business of Fashion and WWD are good places to look for articles about specific retailers.
COMPETITOR
Identify your retailer’s most direct competitor based on product offered, business model, merchandise offering, consumer appeal, and financial performance.
YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Considering all you have learned about the retailer, what do you see as its biggest strengths and its biggest weaknesses, especially compared to those of its competitor? What is your retailer doing right when it comes to areas such as merchandising, satisfying its target consumer’s expectations, its financial situation, tech advances, or any other you identify? Be sure to consider both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce.
Guidelines
Include an introduction, the body of the paper, and a conclusion. Your paper should be 550-600 words (2+ pages), not including cover page or references, APA formatted (cover page, double-spaced, on-page citations and references list). Information provided about the retailer must be backed up with research, not based simply on personal opinions.
When you quote, paraphrase, or summarize information from the article, it must be cited in text in APA format. Use information from the textbook and research from Library Databases and other legitimate sources to support your perspective, position, and evaluations in the paper.
