Online Shopping Affecting Hight Street

WHAT VARIABLES ARE USED FOR SEGMENTING THE CASUAL CLOTHES IN THE UK

Introduction;

This essay identifies various variables used in segmenting the market for Clothes in the UK. It discusses about the Demographic, Geographic and Behaviour descriptors and their adoption in crafting strategies to segment the market for cloth, if those variables translate into purchase and use tendencies.

"Market segmentation refers to breaking a total market down into groups of customers and/or potential customers who have something significant in common in terms of their needs wants or characteristics."

Brassington, F & Pettit, S. (2006) Principles of Marketing. 4th Edition. Page1215.

Market segmentation is a marketing approach that encompasses the identification of different groups of customers with different needs or responses to marketing activity. The market segmentation process also considers which of these segments to target.

Segmentation can also act as dividing an overall market into groups of consumers with similar needs, where each of the groups differs from others in the market in some way.

Basically segmentation allows marketers to see clearly the diversity within their market and uncover opportunities that may exist or segments whose needs have been properly met by other offering. It also allows the firms to select the market, the segmentation approach and access to select segments to targets.

Segmenting the market.

The Casual clothes market can be segmented through Geographic, Demographic, Geodemographic, Psychographic, and Behaviour methods influenced by various variables.

Geographic - calls for dividing the market into different geographic units, such as nations, regions, states, counties, cities, or neighbourhoods. Many companies today are localizing their products as well as their advertising, promotion, and sales efforts--to fit the needs of individual cities, regions, and neighbourhoods. For example, clothing stores sell clothes targeted to their geographic markets. In January, Mark and Spencer in UK would sell clothes for winter while in spring or summer the winter clothes would be taken away. However most of these companies in the UK have different time of the year that clothes for that season are on sales. This therefore leaves the clothing sector industry time to target the consumers they want for each season of the year. For example consumers in Scotland have a different way of dressing due their location and the kind of weather they have compared to those in England.

Demographics - Divides the market into groups based on such variables as age, gender, family size, family life cycle, income, occupation, education, religion, race, and nationality. Demographics is the most popular basis for segmenting customer groups because of consumer needs, wants, and usage rates often closely reflect demographic variables.

When it comes to this variable under the clothing sector the market is different compared to others?

Sex is a strong segment in terms of goods that are specifically targeted towards males or females and again an obvious example is clothing. Here, fashion is a powerful element when purchasing, and a whole industry surrounds this criterion. This is because the UK clothing industry those clothes in such a way that both men and women know what to buy when they go out shopping.

Age is a good segmentation variable for such items as clothes where the fashion-conscious young are more susceptible to regular changes in style and older segments are perhaps more concerned with such factors as quality and comfort. This is because a woman of 40 year old would not buy a cloth of a 25year old lady.

Income of an individual matters when it comes to casual clothes this is because when there is enough disposal income; it is possible that the consumers would spend more money on there clothes.

Occupation; also is important because, a person that works in the city would dress in a different way compared to one that works in a farm.

Socio-economics status; this as to do with the a persons socio class and this therefore influences their dressing for example if an individual is classified as an upper class than the cloth he/she is likely to wear would be different.

Under the demographic variable there are different factors that affect the segmentation of the casual cloths in the UK which means that they