Mlf Design

We want one - please!!!

Yes, that's how it all started. I have always been designing my own clothing - and on many occasions' friends, neighbours and colleagues have talked me into making something for them too. May 2002 I completed a year-long course in the manufacturing of haute-couture and ready-to-wear clothing. The course even made me capable of designing my own sew-ing patterns - opening up a wide range of opportunities. One of these going from hobby into real business.

This paper is exploring the marketing-related issues of going into business with MLF De-sign.

The Product

I make all sorts of ladies wear except lingerie - "standard-sized"-garments or garments in-dividually tailored. They can be divided in the following categories:

MATERIAL GARMENT ADJUSTMENT (If individually fitted) EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENT

fleece, wool, cotton, stretch Jackets, cardigans, t-shirts, light skirts minor Minor - major

cotton, stretch Shirts major major

Satin, silk, cotton, flax Dresses, trousers major major

Fig.1

All garments can be individually decorated - which means that they will be unique - even though no individual fitting have been done (attachment A)

MARKETING SITUATION ANALYSIS.

MARKET:

Since I make both ready-to-wear clothing and tailored clothing there are two relevant main market segments.

Ready-to-wear market segment: The segment is selling oriented. Products sold are both low, medium and high priced - the higher the price, the more focused on the brand (exam-ples: low price: Vero Moda, medium priced: Esprit/InWear, high priced: By Malene Birger/Sand/MUUS)

Product Life Cycle: Mature

Adjusted/tailor-made market segment: The segment is production oriented.

Product Life Cycle: Introduction

Clothing is essentially a necessity but the products sold in this market are not necessary products. In Denmark most people have more clothes than they would be able to wear out in a decade. Therefore the major issue is to create a need in the customer - using a combi-nation of brand awareness and emotional advertising. Or in the case of tailor-made cloth-ing adding a personal value to the product.

The products normally satisfy esteem needsâ„-

1: source MaslowÒ's hierarchy of Needs, Marketing Management 12e, Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Keller, page 185)

PAST EXPERIENCE AND RESULTS:

While sewing just as a hobby I have sold my products - to friends, family and colleagues as well as to strangers. I have sold my products via personal demonstration and via handicraft markets in Nordsjжlland.

Selling my products via personal demonstration has created a lot of sales, but is rather time consuming. However customer satisfaction has been high, and sales could have been higher have I had the time.

Selling via handicraft markets does not generate a lot of sales. There are more visitors than customers. The sales has been equally divided between ready-to-wear garments and ad-justed garments ordered for later delivery.

I have experimented with different pricing strategies. Lower price - higher turnover, higher price - lower turnover. Which is not surprising, but what also showed was that lower price tended to get hold of a different kind of customer - one normally buying medium priced ready-to-wear, but took the change of trying something different because the price was equal. With a higher price the product was only attractive to persons with a very deliberate shopping behaviour.

CUSTOMERS:

The typical user of the product is a woman age 15-50. I do not make men's wear, and chil-dren's wear is very hard to produce with a profit because the production time equals pro-duction time for women's wear, but the pricing has to be lower.

Normal customer behaviour is curiosity at seeing something different, but reluctance be-cause of lack of brand awareness, lack of belief in product value (it looks nice, but how long will it last?)

It is expected, that the products will be inconvenient (designer-clothing must be hand-washed) and surprise is evident when the customer finds out the products can be machine-washed with normal clothing.

COMPANY:

MLF Design is a one-man company. The raw materials (textiles) are bought primarily from major outlets to keep the price down. With a larger production textiles could be bought directly from the wholesaler or producer. Style design and design of sewing patterns, cut-ting out the textiles and sewing and decorating the individual item are all done by the company. Advertisement can be done by the company on small scale (emails, posters etc.).

Resources: The necessary technical equipment to start up is already in possession, the skills are in place - only materials for the products are needed.

Capital: Ready capital 20000Dkr. Further amount of 1.6mill. Dkr. in equity in my house can be realised.

Product value:

Fig.2

COMPETITORS:

Ready-to-wear market segment: There are a lot of shops available for the customers - in-cluding several franchise chains (attachment B). And on the internet the possibilities are even greater (attachment C). This means the distribution channels are wide open for the manufacturers of women's clothing. The industry of manufacturing is highly competitive and is dominated by very large producers each supplying the market with several brands.

There are not many tailors around (attachment B & C) and to buy tailor-made clothing is not common. When clothes are tailor-made, it is normally a very complicated process which requires several visits to the shop. Very few offer tailor-made clothing where the adjustments are fewer and the product is based on a standard product (which makes it possible to keep shop-customer contact to mail