Retail brands Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Retail brands - Essay Example Every country has had its own way of development that has led to retailing and branding of products. The retailing market has now become a segmented form of marketing with a particular retailer focusing on a particular group of customers. This is perhaps a way of improving the manner of dealing with the growing needs of consumers who demand more attention in their particular items or products of interests. Retailing is now gaining control of the market shares that were once overtaken by the stores that were individually owned or were in the form of co-operatives. Now there are large retailers with a chain of stores that are focused in a particular location or country such as ASDA, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and others in the United Kingdom and GAP, Old Navy and JC Penney in the United States of America. However, it is a far cry from saying that retailers have had an easy go at keeping their share of the market. Retailers have had to constantly improve and strive to better understan d the needs of customers. It may be easier in a manner that the smaller industries are now becoming less of a challenge for retail giants such as Wal-mart but if the consumers stop spending or the stores lack the technological advancements needed to keep up to the fast paced global market then they will lose out on their share of the profits. There is a lot more to printing your brand name on a product and expecting customers to come and buy it. Retailers have had to go a long way to establish a trust between the name and brand of a company and the end customers who are the ones are picking items off the shelves. Brands are considered to be the logo of a company and it is how customers have come to associate products. A particular brand can even be a way of representing the social status of an individual in society such as the purchase of a piece that is branded by Harry Winston as compared on one that someone may pick up from a rack at Primark. Brands go a long way to help to make customers familiar with particular products whether it is fashion, electronics and so on. Particular retailers such as General Electric have widespread array of products that they sell to the public which range from motor vehicles to small kitchen appliances. Brand loyalty is established over a period of time and how well the product meets the desires of the individuals. Many people prefer a Toyota car over a Honda or that of Ford and this is due to the experience that they may have had with the products over time. If there is brand loyalty then it is more likely that the price of various articles won’t be as much of an issue as long as the customers find that the article is needed (Ailawadi, K. L., 2004). Retail brands such as H&M and Marks & Spencer’s have made use of celebrities to further the influence of their retail brands. Marks & Spencer hooked up with Antonio Bandares (Amanda Andrews, The Times), the Hollywood actor, to campaign for the retail brand to increas e sales and the campaign paid off. The brand also featured the fashion icon Twiggy for their campaign to appeal to women and managed to get the attention of their target group as well. The icon managed to shake off the reputation that the brand has of cot carrying fashionable items. Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s products have the retailers brand but there were signs that sales were higher when the products