Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1. Rationale
The study will look at the reasons which support the stage of forever 21 and how it is
gradually moving a step towards its decline stage. This is the moment where the company
needs to restructure its business model in the Indian market.
Further looking into the factors and reasons for leading forever 21 to the beginning of its
decline.

Figure No. 1.1 Slow Climbdown of Forever 21

Source: Business Standard article

1.1.1. Forever 21 struggling to maintain its position in Fast Fashion

Aditya Birla Fashion Retail, In February 2018 declared that it was scaling back its operations by
shutting down or resizing its stores due to the decline in sales and huge losses incurred by the
brand.

Aditya Birla reported a decline of 14% in third quarter revenue for Forever 21 to Rs 99 crore
from Rs 115 crore last year.

ABFRL have reported losses of 23 crore rupees (approximately 3.45 million US dollars) in the
fast-fashion section of its business during the financial quarter, ended December 2017, and
attributes that to Forever 21‘s poor performance. The Rs 23 crore loss in fast fashion is mostly
because of Forever21, Rs 15-16 crore is a one-time inventory markdown after rationalizing the
business,

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Analysts quote a major reason for the downfall which is INEFFICIENT INVENTORY
MANAGEMENT. CEO of DLF Brands, Deepak Agarwal, said that send a lot of slow movers
and it becomes difficult to wind up left overs.

Since he had worked with the brand he said that Forever 21 had operational issues which held
back its growth in the Indian market. Also, he said that Unlike Zara and H&M, the business is
not organized. (Business Standard, 2018).

Forever 21 did a one-time inventory hit which had put them in sever trouble as their loss
widened. They had a lot of inventory built up and then they did know what to do with
that.(Gupta, 2018)

1.1.2. Forever 21 is facing hard time globally as well

1.1.2.1. Forever 21 closing its stores

Lincoln Height‘s Forever 21 Inc. posted a loss of more than 29 million pounds, or almost $40
million, for its seven U.K. retail stores for the year ended Feb. 28, 2016, according to an annual
report filed with the U.K. government on Dec. 15, 2017. The loss widened the prior-year‘s $22.5
million loss by almost 75 percent.

Revenue decreased as well, a result of high markdowns and a decline in foot traffic for the fast
fashion retailer, the company said in the report.

The brand was set to close four U.K. stores because of the unfortunate financial performances of
the stores. Two out of those four have already been shut according to local news reports.
(Labusinessjournal.com, 2018)

On January 15, 2018, the store outlet on iconic Robson Street in Vancouver had also closed .The
two-level, 29,000-square-foot space was opened six years ago but the company has told staff it is
closing the outlet there due to the decline in traffic.

Forever 21 had stated a deteriorating functioning performance in Europe and UK. Presently the
brand has decided to cut down their store sizes in UK where the number of operational stores has
come down to three.

Amsterdam and Dublin also witnessed the closure of Forever 21 stores in the recent past. The
fashion brand has been struggling in Europe since 2016. It's not just the European piece of the

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world, Forever 21 has likewise covered its stores in the North American market because of poor
deals. (Apparel Resources India, 2018)

In 2014 the chain, arrived in Australia which has around 700 stores worldwide, the bulk in the
US, is the latest fast fashion fail in Australia. Quietly, it looks like the brand exited Australia in
2017. According to reports, supply chains that lagged behind the leading retailers, there was a
absence of proper online presence and poor understanding in offering clothes, basically a
mismatch of what was expected and what was given to the public there. Clothing that was out of
season was offered in that market could be one of the reasons behind why well-known names
thrash. (NewsComAu, 2018)

Figure No 1. 2 –The fitting rooms at Forever 21, now forever blocked off

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 Figure No1.3 - Registers are closed on the store’s basement level as stock levels dwindle

1.1.3. Forever 21 is struggling to pay its bills (in 2016)

According to The Post, Forever 21 has been involved in opening huge stores around the world
and is paying its bills late.

The delayed payments are spooking vendors and lenders who were already tense, having
witnessed Forever 21 take the unusual step of closing two massive California stores. As a result,
some lenders refuse credit on Forever 21 orders.

Gary Wassner, Chief Executive of Hilldun, a New York lender, said that they are not receiving
timely financial disclosures from the company. And that they that recently pulled its credit lines
for Forever 21.

Shoppers have grown tired of Forever 21‘s low quality as a result traffic in its stores and e
commerce site has declined, RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Tunick, had said that they
probably don‘t have the cash flow they had before when they were the ones taking market share
also that their channel has found out they are suffering from negative store sales for the past few
years.‖sharply. (The Fashion Law, 2018)

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1.1.4. Customer Shift Hampers Sales

Change in customer purchase pattern also hampers forever 21 sales and revenue, Additionally, a
new consumer trend is emerging wherein consumers are slowly but surely moving towards
quality, rather than quantity. People are facing quality issues with the brand and prefer H&M
and Zara products comparatively in terms of quality.

People said they returned very often to forever 21 not because of shopping addiction but because
the clothes wouldn't last more than a few washes, Buttons would fall off, cotton dresses would
fade. So people started shifting to slightly expensive brand with better quality, H&M (Anon,
2018)

1.1.5. Forever 21‟s Dirty Secret

Copyright protection in creative media such as art, literature, and film, is not the same in fashion
which means that fashion designers are helpless to having their work getting replicated.
There are high chances that fast-fashion retailers like Forever 21 imitate designs seen on the
runway and have them in stores just weeks later.
Gucci and Forever 21 are currently involved in a clash after the luxury brand alleged that the it
had ripped off its signature "blue-red-blue" and "green-red-green" stripes in various items of
clothing. Such issues hamper the goodwill and its difficult for the brand to bring its exclusivity.
Also this point was highlighted that forever 21 lacks its exclusivity and therefore customers
prefer other brands of the same segment. (Business Insider, 2018)

1.2. Brand Overview –

Forever 21 earlier known as Fashion 21, founded by South Korean husband and wife Do Won
Chang and Jin Sook, launched in Los Angeles, California (headquarter) on April 21, 1984. It
started with 900 square feet store in 1984 and now it has 790 stores throughout the U.S., Canada,
Europe, Africa, Oceania and across Asia.

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 Figure No 1.4 - Forever 21 Headquarter, Los Angeles, California

Forever 21 is a well know American chain of fashion retailer. It‘s been ranked at 123 in Forbes
as America‘s Largest Private Company. It is known for its trendy offering and its economical
pricing. It provides clothing, accessories and beauty products to women, men and girls. It
provides clothing products such as dressed, jackets, tops, bottoms, intimates, sleepwear and
active wear. It also offers accessories like belts, sunglasses, bags, hair accessories, socks, tights,
hats, scarves, beauty products, gloves. It also provides home products. It provides jewelry
products which include necklaces, earrings, body jewelry, rings, bracelets, watches. It offers
shoes which includes sandals, heels, wedges, sneakers, boots, loafers, flats. They also provide
swimwear such as bikini tops and bottoms, one piece. The company also serves their products
online.

The founder of Forever is the migrants from the Korea to America in 1981. As a new immigrant,
Do Wan Chang had to do jobs to feed his family. He worked as a Janitor and served coffee at a
gas station. During selling coffee at a gas station, he noticed that the most of the people who
come to gas station in luxury cars were all into the retail industry and then he decided to enter
into the apparel industry. Then he and his wife launched Forever 21 after three years of
migrating to America. They initially sold clothing designs which were popular in Korea to the
Korean- American people which were living in Los Angeles. Forever 21 saw $7,00,000 sales in
its first year of launch.

By 2009, his two daughters Linda and Esther joined the family business in the marketing
department.

The company faced many allegations of copyright infringements and labour practices against
them. According to Forbes, Forever 21 had 50 copyright violations lawsuits. Most of the famous

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designers of America sued Forever 21. In defense, they said that they work with merchants not
with the designers and hence they do not copy designs.

Figure No1.5 - Forever 21 copied design of Gucci

Forever 21 is divided into various sub-brands named as XXI Forever, Forever 21 Girls, Love 21
Contemporary, Forever 21+, Gadzooks, 21Men, For Love21, Heritage 1981, Forever 21
Lingerie, Forever 21Red, Riley Rose. (Successstory.com, 2018; Anon, 2018; Martin Roll, 2018)

1.3. Parent Company –

The brand Forever 21 acquired by Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited. It has acquired
the rights of online and offline of American fast-fashion brand in the Indian market. It‘s the
third time the brand has changed its partner after Sharaf Group and DLF Brands. (Jain,
2018)
Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited formerly Pantaloons Fashion and Retail Limited, is
a fashion and lifestyle company. It is engaged into providing branded fashion apparels and
accessories. It is also engaged into the sale of clothing, footwear and leather articles in retail
stores. It is operating into two segments – Madura Fashion & Lifestyle and Pantaloons.

Madura Fashion & Lifestyle is engaged into the manufacturing and distribution of branded
fashion apparel and accessories and it is comprised of around 1800 EBO‘s and
approximately 150 value stores.

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 Pantaloons is engaged into retailing of apparel and accessories and it is comprised of around
160 stores which included Pantaloons Kids store and approximately 30 factory outlets. This
segment has a diversified customer base with men, women, kids and non-apparels.
The company includes the brands which are Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly and
Peter England (Editorial, 2018)

1.4. History/Evolution –
 Forever 21 formed in 1984 by Do Won Chang and his wife Jin Sook.
 Earlier known as Fashion 21 as its first store of 900 square feet located on Figueroa
Street in Los Angeles. After few years, founder opened more stores and renamed as
Forever 21.
 Forever 21 incorporated in California in March 1987.

Figure No1.6 - Launch of Forever 21 as Fashion 21 in 1984

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 Figure No 1.7 – First Opened Store of Forever 21 in Mall in California
 By 1989, the company has 11 units average of 5000 square feet and in 1989 they
opened fist mall based store.
 By 1995, all the stores were opened in California and one store opened at Miami‘s
Mall of Americas which is located in Florida.
 By the end of the decade, it had 100 stores some of them were of 9000 square feet or
more.

Figure No 1.8- Fist Forever 21 store opened outside California in 1995

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 The company introduced a new concept in 2001 as Forever XXI. These stores were
situated in the major metro areas such as Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago and these
stores were average of 24000 square feet.
 In 2003, the company bought a smaller rival named as Reference Clothing Company
for $3.5 million.

Figure No 1.9- Launch Of Forever 21 Website

 In November 2004, they opened its first overseas store in United Arab Emirates.
 In March 2005 they acquired most of the assets of one of its rivals, Gadzooks Inc for
$33.1 million. Due to this purchase, they were able to add more 150 stores in 36
states to the existing stores of Forever 21 which were 200 or so.
 They continued to open two dozen or more stores every year.
 In 2006, another retailer Charlotte Russe Holding Inc sold their rampage stores to
Forever 21 which included 44 locations.

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 .
Figure No. 1.10 – Love 21 and Forever 21 girls segment being launched in
2010 (Encyclopedia.com, 2018)
 In 2010, Forever 21 entered into Inida with Dubai based Sharaf group. The
partnership soon fell apart and in 2013, DLF Brand stepped in. Within a year they
opened 5 more stores.
 In May 2016, DLF sold the brand to Aditya Birla Group Fashion and Retail. There
were 12 stores at that time. In 2018, with about 17 stores, the brand is struggling.
(Googleweblight.com, 2018)

1.5. Mission –
The company‘s mission is to provide shoppers with an unprecedented selection of today‘s
fashion with affordable prices. They are known as ―always changing and always in style‖
(begum, begum and profile, 2018)

1.6. Review of Literature –

The research paper entitled “Reviving Weak And Dead Brands: Insights From Theory
And Practice”

Thomas and Kohli (2006), says that even if your brand reaches great heights and becomes the
strongest brand with high net worth are not immune from brand decline and subsequent death.
So, he further says to evaluate the brands that are being declined and find out the reasons of
declining to take corrective steps so that the brand can be revitalized by investing in them. Aaker
(1991), said that revitalization of a brand or taking corrective actions costs much less than the
cost of producing a new product.

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The best example for this can be taken from the Bestselling car company Ford which realized
that instead of introducing another brand which will be unknown to others, they better used the
Tauras brand which had brand awareness and brand recognition that will help Tauras to reborn.
It further explains the terminology, ―strong equity‖ which means that high awareness and
consumers‘ strong, favorable and unique brand association can help in distinguishing different
products from different sellers.
For Example: - There was a company Pan America airways known as PanAm which was the first
American company to operate international flights. In 1998 it faced a major crise in which one of
its airlines were high jacked and crashed due to this reason PanAm faced negative publicity and
the brand was dead. This explains that even a well-known brand can decline.

In the research paper they further explain the causes of brand decline. The causes are explained
below:

1. Managerial Actions- Ron Strauss suggests that brands often decline due to the leadership
management and excuses given by employs rather than taking actions upon it.
Managerial actions impact the brand‘s health. These actions can be classified into five
categories:
 Product Quality – The compromises in the product quality for the cost cutting
impacts the brand loyalty in the long run, This can be explained with the help of
Harley Davidson who had a competition with the Japanese brand due to this it
produced smaller and lower quality motor bikes which impacted the entire
franchise of Harley brands. (Hoovers, 2007)
 Price Increase – Continuous increase in prices without offering corresponding
increase in benefits will impact the brand image. Volkswagon once had been a
leader with its Rabbit model but replaced it with a newer model known as Golf
after that the brand was unable to control its cost which resulted in price increase
and ultimately their brand image was affected. (Serafin,1993)
 Price Cut – To increase the sales the companies desperately cuts the price which
impacts the brand image. The same happened with the Lacoste brand which tried
to lower its price and for that they use cheaper material and due to this their brand
image declined. (Bloom, 2005)
 Brand Neglect – Successful brands even after getting popular needs constant
nurturing. But once the brand gets popular, the management loses its sight on the
core brand and neglect investment which results in declining brand image.
 Inability to Stay with the Target Market – A brand starts declining when its target
market feels neglected. The same happened with GAP in 1990 when it tried to
position itself as youthful and trendy but in this process their target market which
included teenagers and young adults. (Hoover,2007; Palmiere,2004). The CEO of
the brand acknowledged the fact that their ads have become ―too edgy‖. (Sellers,
2003)
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2. Environmental Factors – Environmental factors plays a very important role in the
operation of the brand. For example, RJ Reynolds‘s Camel used a cartoon character
named Joe Camel to attract children. This led to lawsuits against them and it suffered
with negative publicity which impacted the brand‘s image. (Haig, 2003)
Another example: Polaroid was famous for the instant photography for its unique product
offering but due to the introduction of the digitalization the company got decline and
bankrupt. (Hoovers, 2008)

George Eatsman introduces his first camera as ―Kodak‖ in 1880‘s. In 1990‘s digital
camera introduced in the market and Kodak faced challenges for its survival. But it
quickly realized the challenge and made necessary investment and with this help it
maintained itself in leading a new market. Hewlett Packard, Sony and Casio were the
other digital companies for competing with Kodak but Kodak never allowed them to
transform its market into others and avoided death of its company and maintained its 16%
market share.

3. Competitive Actions – competitive actions sometimes can be problematic. Good

example for this is Puma and Adidas who got declined because of their completive
actions. Both of these brands were very popular in Europe but because of their actions
Nike and Reebok took over which were more in tune with American trends. Nike wiped
out Adidas‘s market share from 60% to less than 3% in the early 1990‘s. (Smit, 2008).
Recently Puma and Adidas have started to regain their footfall in North America, with
Puma gaining a presence in the active lifestyle and Adidas making inroads in footwear
segment.

Similarly, Wal-Mart a new competitor for K-mart(famous for low price retailer) took
over its market share by making cost-cutting its science. Wal-mart in the short time span
of 5 years went from 330 stores to 1114 stores in 1985. It offered ―Everyday Low Prices‖
as opposed to periodic discounting by its competitors. As K-mart unable to compete with
it merge with Sears Roebuck in 2004 to fight with Wal-mart with combined strength.

Newer competitors have the advantage to challenge established market leaders. For
selling the personal computer retail stores were the distribution channels but Dell offered
direct-to-customer distribution system and offered the products at lower prices and made
smart use of Internet for its offering by offering customized PC‘s. Due to the innovative
changes Dell became the market leader. As a result, Compaq and Hewlett Packard
merged.

Netflix threatened the Blockbuster Company which was giant in the video rental business
and Netflix introduced the video rentals via mail for the convenience of the customers.

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Due to which Blockbuster was forced to close its 300 stores alone in 2006 and is fighting
back by offering its own version of online rentals via mail, under the name of Total
Access (Internet Retailer, 2007)

Deconstructing Brand Decline – Any changes in the Brand equity can result in the
decline of the brand.
1. Brand Differentiation – A brand must have its own unique marketing feature so that
the target market is able to differentiate between that particular brand and the other
brands.
For ex: Oldsmobile brand once stood for innovation but by 1980‘s customers couldn‘t
find much difference between Oldsmobile and the other brands.
2. Brand Knowledge – The market must be informed about the differentiation which has
been created by the brand. It contains two components:
 Brand Awareness –
 Brand Image – The brand image could be changed over a period of time to
maintain but it can be maintained by strong, favorable and unique brand
associations. (Keller, 1999, p. 102). Levis is an another brand which suffered
with brand image problem as once it was a leader for the high quality denim
jeans but over the years it lost its image by selling its signature brand
through Walmart.
3. Customer Response - The customer response can be measured with the help of sales
figures, purchase intentions and brand loyalty. Another indicator is brand switching
behavior which can be occurred due to various reasons like increase in the price,
entry of new competitors or negative news about the brand. These things happened
when the bond of the brand with their customers become weak.

The corrective actions must be taken for the above mentioned signs of decline as they
all are related to one another.

Revitalizing brands – All the elements of the brand equity are equally important to
survive in the market. For example, a brand maintain its high awareness level even
when its image may be declining, which happened in the case of PanAm. Similarly,
some brands not getting proper response because of ineffective marketing efforts can
result in decline even when there was favourable brand awareness and brand image.
It is less costly and risky to revive an existing brand instead of introducing a new
brand.

To revive a brand it is important to measure all the factors of Brand equity which are
brand knowledge (awareness and image), brand differentiation and customer
response. But the brand should be worth the effort. Reviving is impossible for the

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 brands which suffered from lack of differentiation, low awareness and negative
image. In such case, it will be better to kill the brand than to invest in. Also, it is
important while reviving a brand is that whether it has long term perspective or not.
It‘s important for the brand to carefully differentiate and reposition itself and educate
the market and take the correct actions for the mismanagement of the brand.

The reseach paper entitled “Back to life! Why brands grow old and sometimes die and
what managers then do: an exploratory qualitative research put into the French context”

In this research paper, the author is highlighting the aging problem that every brand can
potentially face. The author has done fifty three in depth interview with top level managers and
advertising executives to identify the major possible causes of the aging issue. After carefully
sorting and ordering the applied remedies the paper proposes the potential cure that relates the
causes to their possible remedies. Since we know that there is no unique systematic system for
any problem, the paper will propose a decision making chart to guide brand managers for taking
the appropriate action.

In this research paper, it is mentioned that a brand is considered to be old only when consumers
start neglecting them. Not because the brand‘s product lacks quality but because the taste sound
or look is old compared to the new one. Thus consumers simply and progressively forget the old
aging brand. By this the market share decreases, sales get vanished and the brand slowly and
slowly disappears. (Aaker, 1999). Chronical age is not the exact concern here but a brand can be
aged but it should be young and modern in the consumers mind.

The interview they conducted helped them in listing out the various causes for the ageing brand
which were based on the following parameters i.e.., the offers (concerns about the factors related
products the brand is offering), the target market (concerns about to whom the brand is
targeting), brand communication(concerns about how the brand communicate to their
consumers). Some of the reasons they listed are: An already old perceived promise of
satisfaction, ageing R&D, slowdown of innovation, obsolete production, obsolete technology,
out-of-fashion styles/design/colours, doubtful brand categorization, unsuccessful new product
launching, badly known or unknown to the younger consumer, lowering of the communication
budget, obsolete packaging, irrelevant media planning, out-of-fashion argument of
communication, fashion effects ignored but implemented by competitors.

They further mentioned that the reasons they came out from the common sense tactics chosen
upon the a personal feeling rather than giving a thoughtful strategies that would link to the
bringing back of the brand.

Wansink and Gilmore (1999) demonstrated that the ageing process can be reduced by generating
new uses which will create strategic opportunities for increased usage of the brand among the
newly targeted segment.

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The brands have their own long history, long-time know-how and real authenticity. For example:
in recognition of the Levi‘s brand it took one hundred and thirtieth years in creating the blue
jeans business and the company participated in a brand rebuilding strategy with launch of
original Type 1 jeans in 2003. (Warner,2002).

If target is becoming the one of the cause of brand ageing, the strategy could be to modify or
enlarge the target. When the target enlargement is preferred the brand has to decide whether they
should use the umbrella brand or sub-brands should be created.

If communication is the problem, then the brand should make strategies to communicate itself to
the target customer and it should take initiative to make their brand known to all.

Further the research paper discuss about the advantages of the successful brands. The successful
brands always have the product differentiation from its competitors‘ product. If the perceived
differentiation is not strong in the eyes of the customers, it probably will not be able to succeed
in revitalizing the brand regardless of the financial rejuvenation efforts. If differentiation is
important key factor for the strong brands to compete with its competitors then it is even
important for the brands that are in weak position (Trout, 2000).

Further the research showed that some experts believe that the brand could be benefited from the
new identity with communication strategy that could be used as a remedy for rejuvenating the
ageing brand. If the new advertisements are good it could boost the brand and put it back on right
track. Some of the experts also mentioned that changing a brand‘s name can also help in
rejuvenation of ageing brand.

Managers confirmed that there is no unique solution for rejuvenating an ageing brand. There can
be different paths and remedies that can be taken. The brand needs to do in-depth analysis of its
brand to define the causes of the ageing problem and then should take corrective action based on
the analysis result. It is important to do the in-depth analysis because all the brands have their
own unique history and specific life cycle on which their analysis will be dependent.

The research paper entitled “Journal of Historical Research in Marketing”

The purpose of this research paper is to shed light on the marketing strategies that aimed at
reviving of fashion brands. This research paper will focus on the revival strategy that was
implemented by Fashion Company named as Pucci.

The research paper further explains that the successful brands require significant resource
investment and careful management of the elements of marketing mix. (De Chernatony and Mc
Donals, 1992; Doyle, 1989). Companies often find that reviving a brand is more attractive
strategy than launching a new brand. Reviving of a brand needs proper research from the past as
what has caused the brand to decline and after analysis of the past activities the brand can make
strategies to revive a brand.

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Brand revival can be defined as the rebirth or re-launch of a product or services which are linked
to that brand‘s historical period which has usually, but not always, been updated to meet
contemporary standards in terms of performance, function or taste. (Brown et al., 2003, p.20)

Retro-marketing strategies are emerging as a powerful brand management option for the
companies that have lost their role as trendsetter and no longer hold the attention of the media
and consumers (Clancy, 2011).

This research shows that the retro marketing strategies backfires when an extensive knowledge
of the firm history and a well-documented analysis of the historical background is not supported
to revive a brand.

Consumers love old brands with which they can connect but for maintaining that image the
brand should combine the old with the new this means the brand must combine the latest cutting
edge technology to provide a competitive advantage therefore brand should be old fashioned
with new offerings.

The article examined the revival of Pucci by using the corporate heritage for reviving the brand .
Their history as a source of market value and cultural marker of legitimacy and authenticity
helped them to revive their brand. The history can turn itself into a competitive advantage.

Retro is a marketing and advertising tactic that the company applies by reviving old products by
offering them into new ways. Brand heritage is deeply rooted in the history of the companies
which cannot be copied by any other company. Heritage marketing is seen as the gateway to
gaining competitive advantage through an integrated management of the legacy of the values
associated with the brand overtime. (Hakala et al., 2011)

A heritage brand is recognizable by following characteristics such as track record, longevity,

core values, history and the use of symbols. By track record it meant demonstrate proof that the
company have lived up to its value and promises over time. Longevity reflects consistent
performance among other heritage elements. Core values are a brand‘s identity and overtime
constitute as its heritage. History embraces three time phrases, the past, the present and the
future. (Balmer et al.,2007)

According to Fill (2009), history is an element important in heritage marketing in creating a

brand‘s image as well as maintaining brand‘s loyalty (Dahlen et al., 2010).

Respecting and highlighting the history of a company does not make consumer associate with
old fashion: without throwing away it‘s history the brand can be a modern brand that will help
the customers to gain trust for that brand. (Donnie, 2009 ; Ballantyne et al., 2006)

The history of fashion, economic history, social and consumption history all these expect allow a
better understanding of the reasons why fashion brands gained consumer's appreciation in the
past. Business historians make contribution in retro marketing and brand revival operations. The

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gap between the past and the present makes retro marketing and brand revival a challenging task
as these critical issues have to be addressed by advertising campaigns.

Chapter 2 – Research Objectives and Methodology

2.1. Research Problem Statement
―To do an in-depth study of the brand Forever 21 and analyze the factors responsible for decline
of Forever 21 and suggest the revival strategies for the brand‖

2.2. Research Objective

RO 1: To analyze the Marketing Strategies of Forever 21

RO 2: To analyze the Consumer Satisfaction towards Retail Mix Elements

RO 3: To identify the Autumn Winter 2018 trends followed by Forever 21.

RO 4: To identify the details of the styles in chosen category

2.3. Research Design

―A research design is the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a
manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose with economy in procedure.‖
(Kothari,2004) Research design is the plan and structure of the research study it specifies the
methodology adopted for acquiring data and relevant information. Research design is a
combination of methods and techniques chosen by the researcher in which research is taken in an
efficient and logical manner. (Malhotra,2018)

The Research Design has two aspects –

1. Exploratory research is defined as an initial stage of research where the main aim is
exploration of the study understanding the problem and discovering insights and
thoughts. An exploratory research is unstructured and flexible in the process. The
information is not defined. (Malhotra,)
2. Descriptive Research is structured and gives defined results and conclusions. It can be
done using both qualitative and quantitative methods. It is more conclusive in nature.

2.4. Research Objective 1 - To analyze the Marketing Strategies of the Brand

The research design for this objective would be an exploratory research. An exploratory research
because there is a need for exploration of data through secondary sources. This research design
was used because of the partial knowledge about the subject and to increase our knowledge on

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the same.

Since Marketing is a very vast concept therefore a need to first understand the concepts and
terminologies is required from sources like articles, books, websites to find out relevant data and
further to understand and explore the marketing strategies adopted by the brand we need the use
of secondary sources again.

2.4.1. Research Methodology

RO 1: To analyze the marketing strategies of

the Brand

Exploratory Research

Secondary Data

Website:
 www.marketing91.com
 www.hindustantimes.com
 www.forever21.com
 www.livemint.com
 www.emeraldinsight.com

Books:
 Philip Kotler

Articles:
 Fast Fashion requires fast
marketing.
 Fashion Industry Analysis
from the perspective of
business model.
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 Chart No 2.1 Research Methodology of RO 1

The research methodology is including the secondary source of data collection method,
Secondary data was collected data through existing data sources such as research papers, articles,
Books and websites to gather information. Secondary data was an inexpensive way to collect
data. Data collected helped in gaining in depth understanding and exploration about the
marketing strategies adopted by Forever 21.

RO2: To analyze the Customer Satisfaction Towards Retail Mix

Elements.

SURVEY
PRIMARY
RESEARCH DESIGN

OBSERVATION

DESCRIPTIVE Research Papers

DATA COLLECTION
METHODS
EXPLORATORY Articles

Books
SECONDARY

Case studies

Chart No 2.2. Research Methodology of RO 2

2.5. Research Objective 2 - To analyze the Customer Satisfaction Towards

Retail Mix Elements.

2.5.1. Research Design

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The research design for this objective is a mix of exploratory and descriptive research.

The research design includes an exploratory research since there a certain kind of exploration
involved while studying the retail mix of the brand.

Exploration is required in this research because we need to explore the problems or factors that
could increase or decrease the customer satisfaction through various research techniques.

Like in order to understand the customer mindset about a product, or to take feedback from a
customer about his or her shopping experience we need one to one interaction with the
customers, which would be unstructured questions asked then and there according to the
situation, thus a need for exploration is there.

As this could give insights about the areas of problems in the retail mix of forever 21 and then
using this data next step would be doing a conclusive research, so the insights and ideas from
exploratory research could be verified and could be put to tests to analyze and find conclusive
results.

Also, this research design has a descriptive research as well. (FluidSurveys, 2018)
Since the variables of this objective are already stated we can do a descriptive research for this
objective. This research design is descriptive in nature because the results would give defined
results, using qualitative and quantitative techniques we can analyse the results, in order to find
out the customer satisfaction towards the retail mix of Forever 21.
The data acquired from survey could further be put to testing the data quantitatively by various
hypothesis tests and see as to why, how and when things have occurred.

Like if we need to find out the marketing or advertising strategies the brand has adopted we need
secondary sources like websites, social media platforms to research upon and explore their
promotion tactics but in order to see the awareness and impact of these strategies on consumers
we need to do a survey to see are the customers aware about the brand or are they aware about
the offers and discounts provided by Forever 21. By doing so we could see if there is lack of
awareness amongst consumers about the promotions and offers this could be one of the reasons
for decreased footfall.

Apart from that in case of finding out the competitors of the brand, we would require to use
secondary sources like journals, websites and see the top competitors of the brand who could eat
its market share but in case of analyzing the preference of customers as to which brand they
would choose over forever 21 we need to conduct a survey for that matter. Therefore, a mix of
both exploratory and descriptive research design is required. Firstly exploring data for
discovering thoughts and thereby putting that data to tests for conclusive results.

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2.5.2. Research Methodology

Since the research design is a mix of both descriptive and exploratory research there are various
research methods which could be used for conducting this research.

Talking about exploratory research first the ways doing the research could be Secondary data,
Focus group, In depth Interview, Projective techniques, Ethnography.

Whereas in case of descriptive research the research methods could be survey technique,
Observation, Experimentation.

But in our research, we have opted for a secondary data method because this method is less
expensive saves money as compared to any other way of collecting data, reduces travel costs like
in case of PI you need to get in personal touch with the sample and easy to conduct. Also reduces
the time consumed in carrying out the research, keeping convenience in mind with the internet
revolution everything is a click away and it is much simpler to access data through such sources.

Also using secondary data, we can always re analyze the publishes data and generate new
insights from the same, which would certainly lead to discovery of fresh and new ideas.

Apart from that another thing is that a comparison could be done from previously published data
like data could be compared from national to international barriers change or decrease in market
share of the brand from 2014- 2018, such analysis could be seen online. (Xaquín S. Pérez-Sindín
López, 2018)

Also, in this research survey method has been used for conducting descriptive research using
questionnaire as the research instrument.

A survey technique is a way of gathering information by asking questions to the sample who
seem to have the desired information. A questionnaire has a set of questions listed in a particular
form which are further floated to the audience who are expected to read and write their responses
in the space provided.( Kothari, 2004)

This approach is also easy to conduct, it is faster and cheaper and data from such methods could
be easily analyzed through software‘s and can be put to quantitative tests. Also Respondents,
who are not easily approachable, can also be reached conveniently. (Kothari,2004;
Managementstudyguide.com, 2018)

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The questionnaire is formulated based on retail mix elements and the set scales have been used
from research papers, the questionnaires will be floated to target audience to gather relevant
information in order to analyze which of the retail mix elements are hampering the customer
satisfaction and are there any elements which are directly or indirectly relating to the decline of
the brand.

The second technique is the observation technique, This would be a naturalistic observation,
since the customers would not be aware that there behavior is being watched because by doing so
they could change their buying behavior and they might get conscious. And it could result in
giving false results. Observation technique is being used because it would be free from bias like
in interviews and data could be more accurate, since the sample is directly observed and the data
could not be manipulated as such.

―The benefits of this method are that there are high chances of personal bias being removed.
Secondly, the information gathered from this method gives the data in relevance of current
situation and is not affected by past or future intentions. Also, here collecting data is independent
of respondents‘ readiness to respond and the need of collaboration with the respondents for
gathering information is quite less as compared to questionnaire or interview method.‖(Kothari
2004)

Since we would visit the store and observe the customer as to what types of purchases is he
trying to make, is the customer attracted towards the latest trends offered by the brand, are the
customers easily able to locate their need of products, which would show that the visual
merchandising if the brand is on place or do they need to improve on that. We could see and
observe the availability of staff members is there or not to help the customers figure out the
products if it isn‘t there then we could say that the service quality factors need to be worked
upon.

2.5.3. Scales of research

In the research exploratory analysis includes data explored for determining the scales of the
research instrument that is a questionnaire, the scales are predefined by researches made
previously that is explored from secondary source. (Ahmed et al.,2014;
Pdfs.semanticscholar.org, 2018)

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 Table No2.1 - Scales of research for building Questionnaire

2.5.4. Data Collection Methods

There are two types of data collection methods, from primary source and secondary sources.

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Primary sources of data is the first-hand data received through personalized way of approaching
the target audience. It is the first-hand evidence collected through interviews, focus groups,
observations, surveys, telephone interviews and so on.

Secondary data is the source through which data is already available, this data has already been
collected and analyzed by someone else. Secondary data could be published or unpublished data.
Published data is available in various publications of central, state and local government, books ,
magazines and newspapers, reports and journals. Unpublished data sources could be many, this
could be from diaries, letters, unpublished biographies and autobiographies, trade associations.
(Kothari,2004)

For this objective, Both methods have been used, firstly the secondary source is used to gather
data about the scales of the questionnaire, from previously published research papers, also
reference has been taken from Articles and internet websites, in order to study the retail mix
elements.

Usage of secondary sources of data is there since, this data collection method is less expensive,
readily available, less time consuming.

For Primary sources of data observation method, questionnaires asked by customers to filled on
one to one basis, and one to one interactions of gathering data.

―In observation method the scholar is able to record the natural behavior of the group. Also he
can even gather information which could not easily be obtained if he observes in a disinterested
fashion.‖(Kothari, 2004)

Primary sources of data will be the questionnaire that will be floated online for survey filled by
the respondents. Also, the interactions with customers taken at the Forever 21 store, wherein we
did a one to one interaction with customers who were present at the store and were shopping
from forever 21. We asked about their shopping experiences at forever 21 and they gave us the
feedback about the brand.

2.5.5. Sampling

The Sampling is a technique which lets researchers to deduce information about a population
built on results from a subset of the population, since it is very difficult to investigate the whole
population.(Kothari,2004 ; Towards Data Science, 2018)

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There are different types of sampling techniques which can be divided into two categories -
Probability and Non-probability sampling. ―Probability sampling is based on the concept of
random selection, whereas non-probability sampling is ‗non-random‘ sampling‖ ( Kothari,2004)

Probability Sampling is further sub categorized into various other techniques like Simple random
sampling, Systematic sampling, Stratified Sampling, Multistage Sampling, Cluster Sampling.
Whereas Non-probability techniques would include convenience sampling, Judgmental
sampling, Quota sampling and, snowball sampling.

Figure No 2.1 - Types Of Sampling

The sampling techniques chosen firstly Convenience sampling and snowball sampling.
Convenience Sampling method is used wherein the data is gathered from the population
members who are conveniently available for the study.

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 Figure No 2.2 - Convenience sampling

Since according to our convenience, we have limited our sampling to availability of sample in
Delhi NCR region only, since that was easy for our accessibility. So, the sample would be derived
from this region only and our study would be limited to this area.
Convenience sampling was used because this method is easy and simple in carrying out,
information could be collected in a shorter period and lastly this method is less expensive.
(Research-Methodology, 2018)

The next type of sampling used would be snowball sampling; snowball sampling is when a
sample further generates referrals or nominates other sample for data collection. The reason to use
this method of data collection is that the way is a cost-effective manner
Also collecting data with snowball sampling requires a short duration of time and requires very
less forecasting to start primary data collection process.

So here snowball is used for floating questionnaires from one potential primary source to another
he further refers or another and this goes on to collect data in Delhi, NCR region.
(Research-Methodology, 2018)

Exponential non-discriminative snowball sampling

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 Figure No 2.3 - Snowball Sampling

Also the sample frame for this research is Delhi, NCR region and the sample size is 216 ,the
sample size will be consumers who will be shopping in Forever 21 stores or customers through
online survey in Delhi NCR.

2.6. Data Analysis proposed

1) Research objective 1: To Analyze the Marketing Strategies of the Brand.

For this objective we have used Secondary Sources (Qualitative research) which comes under
exploratory research for gathering information.

Qualitative Research: Qualitative research is an unplanned, unstructured exploratory research

methodology based on small samples that provide insights and understanding of the problem
settings. It is a research conducted by a group of people to determine what they think or feel
about the situation and what the factors that influence their behavior are. It also provides insight
and Understanding of the problem settings. Researcher of the qualitative research can be located
through the Qualitative research consultants Association which is the largest body of
independent qualitative research consultants in the world. The main purpose of qualitative
market research is to study the psychology of the individuals.

This market research is valuable when you are developing a new products or coming up with the
new market initiatives and you want to check the reaction of the public. Qualitative market
research is done as it is a very important step in research including preparing a marketing plan,
doing SWOT Analysis, product development, pricing, branding. It helps us in developing our
products and services and makes us sure that our product or the services meet the targeted
Audience.

There are two types of Qualitative Research Techniques:

1) Direct techniques
2) Indirect techniques

Direct Techniques include: Focus group Discussion, In depth Interviews, Ethnography

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Indirect Techniques include: Projective Techniques which are further divided into Association
Techniques, Completion Techniques, Construction Techniques, and Expressive Techniques.

Qualitative research is useful in many ways:-

1) What consumer or the customer thinks about your product or the services.
2) How price affect their decision towards your goods and services.
3) How they choose between different products and services.
4) Whether there is a demand of this product or services in the market and between the
customers.

Qualitative research is all about getting people to expand their answers so that you can get more
insights into their behavior and attributes. It is all about knowing the responses and what are the
things which are driving their decisions.

2) Research Objective 2: To Analyze the consumer satisfaction towards Retail mix elements.

For this we have used statistical tools like Pearson‘s Correlation and Mode as a Technique to
find out the consumer satisfaction towards retail mix elements.

Correlation: It is a statistical technique which shows whether the pair of variables are strongly
related or not. In this Technique you know that there is a relation between them but unable to
identify which is strongest. An intelligent correlation analysis can lead to a greater understanding
of your data.

There are several techniques of correlation: Statistics modules which include the most common
type called Pearson or product moment‘s correlation. The module also includes a variation on
this type called partial correlation.

Correlation technique works for quantifiable data where are number are useful and quantities of
some sort. Correlation cannot be used for purely categorical data such as Gender, brand
purchased or favorite color.

Advantages of this method are:

1) It is very easy to interpret.

2) It produces data which has better statistical properties.
3) This method also enables us to know the value of dependent variable with reference
to a particular value of independent variable through regression process.
4) Under correlation technique we can ascertain the direction whether the relation
between the two variables are positive or negative.
5) Main advantage of this technique is that it not only indicates the presence or the
absence of correlation between two variables but also determined the degree to which
they are correlated.

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 6) This method has a lots of algebraic properties for which the calculation of correlation
and which makes host of other related factors easy.

Mode: It is a statistical term. It refers to the occurring numbers that are found in a set of numbers
very frequently. In order to count the frequency of each result the mode is found by organizing
and collecting data. The result with the highest number of occurrence in the collected data is the
mode of the set.

Advantages of this method are:

1) It is a very simple method to calculate and easy to understand.

2) It is very useful for qualitative data
3) This method is easily located graphically.
4) It is not affected by extremely small or by extremely large values.
5) Open end frequency table can also be computed by this method.
6) It can also be located just by inspection in ungrouped data.

Chapter 3 – Findings and Analysis

3.1. Environmental Analysis

3.1.1. Pestle Analysis of Forever 21

These factors are responsible for affecting the environment of the Forever 21 which the brand
has less control on them as they lie outside the business and their competitors.

3.1.1.1. Political Factors

 After BJP coming into play, The Narendra Modi government modified the labor laws to
fixed contracts with an aim of promoting job creation. The guidelines promise pay parity
and statutory benefits will be there for fixed-term contract workers. These new policies
are an extension to the first introduced labour contract laws by BJP in 2016 for textile
and apparel industry. (https://www.livemint.com/, 2018)

 The Modi government focus on generating employment opportunities in the labour

intensive textile sector, which has been hailed by several businesspersons in the
country. They promise to deliver facilities like cheap land to the textile industries,
uninterrupted power supply to the industries and outspreading top-notch infrastructural
facilities. (Fibre2fashion.com, 2018)

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  Rebate of State Levies, is a critical aspect for revival of the economic slowdown after
demonetization and GST said the industry experts. Allocation in the ROSL must rise so
that the apparel industry exporters are granted refunds against the levies they give out
state level. A bout 2000 crores have been given in this segment and the major benefits
from this go towards the small scale exporters so that they are helped in boosting the
sales and shipments from the labour intensive segment (The Hindu, 2018)

 In 2014, there was increase in wage rate for Indian labor to 272.19 from earlier it was
255 per day. Due to increase wage rate it will lead to the increase in the production cost
and leading to force the retailer to raise their selling price. As the price of the product
rises leading to fall in the demand of the product. (Tradingeconomics.com, 2018)

Figure No 3.1 - Increase in labour wage

Source - (Tradingeconomics.com, 2018)

 As few days there was increase in the price of fuel that leads to increase in the
transportation cost for supplying the raw material and finished goods to different countries.
According to Times of India dated 29th May 2018, increase in the prices of fuel has led to
15% increase in their cost of operation. (News and News, 2018)

3.1.1.2. Economic Factors

 Demonetization has adversely affected the retailers, small industries, households as
transaction became difficult due to less availability of cash in the market. Note of Rs 500
and 1000 were scrapped in a go and it comprised of 86% of the currency so it lead to

31
 decrease in the cash flow which impacted the purchasing power of the households and lead
to decrease in demand and production. (F-trend.com, 2018)
 After demonetization the result of slowdown of production at that time, led the fast fashion
retailers to sell their products at discount to clear off their current stock.
 With the GST coming into picture, In April 2017 the fabric exports were somewhere
around $230.37 million and in October 2017 it flopped to $113million. The apparel
exports market fell by 8% in December 2017 alone compared to 2016.
(www.thehindu.com)
 As before the implementation of GST, the retailers have to impose pre-seasonal sale to
clear its old stock as the tax incidence was likely to increase after implementation of GST
and to increase price on the existing goods was difficult for them. As after July 1, the
readymade garment which are upto the price of 1000 would carry the tax rate of 5% and
above the price 1000 would carry 12 % tax rate and earlier the VAT was around 5.5% and
excise duty was 1.2% and it was different from state to state. So, from the current 7% tax
rate it was going to increase to 12% (Dfupublications.com, 2018)

 According to Trump Trade war which was held on 6th July, 2018 it affected the global
apparel industry by imposing 25% border tax which lead to increases in the prices of
imported goods. (Medium, 2018)

3.1.1.3. Social Factors

 Supplier and Vendor Social Agreement-
The fast fashion retailer, Forever 21, makes wise business decisions in the kind of way
they get the products they are willing to sell. The brand focuses on creating an optimistic
working environment within their business family and retail outlets, along with all the
vendor manufacturing units worldwide who are involved in making the products for the
brand. (Hennig Ruiz & Singh, 2018)
 Forever 21 goes into a complete contract with their sellers and their industrial facilities
under which they guarantee to use legitimately qualified laborers, pay them compensation
which are reasonable and lawful, and deliver a setting which fulfills all legal necessities.
(Hennig Ruiz & Singh, 2018)
 Their Agreement include issues of time off, free affiliation rights, non-discrimination,
ecological insurance and security, and disallows the utilization of constrained or slave
work, child labor or prison labor. (Hennig Ruiz & Singh, 2018)
 All these standards used by the brand were set according to the industry standards, local
labor laws, the California Transparency in Supply Chain Act, the UN Declaration of
Human Rights and the ILO Core Conventions. (Hennig Ruiz & Singh, 2018)
 Forever 21 is providing wages to the labours as per the current minimum wage in Indian
States and Union Territories i.e., the average Forever 21 monthly salary ranges from

32
 approximately Rs. 11,436 per month for Bank Office Executive to Rs. 45,000 per month
for team leader. (21, 2018)
 Charity programs
Forever 21 is involved in various charity plans, they encourage helping of those in need.
The brand had Contributed to disaster relief programs, like Japan Disaster Relief, they
donated all the money spent on its online ecommerce websites globally to The American
red Cross for the help of the affected people in Japan. They contributed their 100% of its
global online sales to the victims. (Hennig Ruiz & Singh, 2018)
 The brand has faced employee discrimination issues has well, was Forever 21 follows
English only policy in the store, and due to this some Spanish speaking employee have
filed a case against the brand. Also, the employees complained about unfriendly working
environment in the store. (Hennig Ruiz & Singh, 2018)

3.1.1.4. Technological Factors

 As we know that millennial likes to shop online, so the brand needs to focus on
developing the online activities which helps them to increase in sales of their brand. The
technology which brand use to produce the products also makes them look apart from the
competitor‘s product. With the help of technological development, the brand gains the
opportunities in serving their products to the competitor‘s consumers.
 With help of website, the customer gives feedback for their product and by this they can
analyze which products are best seller and which products the customers do not like
which can impact their production level.
 Forever 21 launched the new AI visual search Method which is beyond the text
based online search method.
 With this feature the shoppers don‘t need to type fashion terms in the search bar
Instead, they can explore the products by simply clicking icons that represent the
features they want in an outfit, ranging from the length of a skirt to the neckline of a
shirt.
 ―Discover Your Style‖ was the name of the feature which was added in the Forever 21
App, this feature was limited to only two categories initially which were dresses and
tops. (Chain Store Age, 2018)

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 Figure No 3.2. - Forever 21 Mobile App Feature’ Discover Your Style “
Source - (Chain Store Age, 2018)

 Within one month of the debut of this feature, the fast fashion brand saw a 20% increase
in average purchase value
for the two categories and
along with that an increase
in the sales conversion was
noticed.
 Forever 21 opt for Oracle
Retail merchandise
planning and
Optimization
solutions in order to predict
future customer
demands and ensure that
the right mix of
assortments is available in
the store. This software
will help to align the needs
of the customer

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 expectations and will help to reduce the problem of Out of Stock. (OOS) Through this
software the retailer could place products which would enhance the sales as the software
would predict to keep apparels that the customers are looking for. (RIS News, 2018)

3.1.1.5. Legal Factors

 The fashion brands need to follow the ethics and the others laws like Labor laws,
environmental laws, which contribute in the actively growth of the brands.
 Forever 21 faced disputes over their workers‘ condition and pay. The company violated
the minimum wage and overtime laws which will affect the reputation of the brand. Due
to the violation of Labor laws, the brand and their sub-brands will lose their loyalty.
 Forever 21 have been sued 50 times for the Piracy lawsuits and still there is no
improvement in their practices. They always copy the design of the others designers and
brands and get into cases with bigger brands for piracy infringements.
 Forever 21 was sued for $2 million for by a former employee for ―extreme emotional
damages" after she was filmed in an employee bathroom. This incident badly questioned
the responsibility of the company and their security towards their employees.
(The Independent, 2018)
 Forever 21 has been sued by big brands like GUCCI, PUMA and ADIDAS, H&M for
copying their designs. All these piracy lawsuits would eventually hamper the goodwill of
the brand in the long run.

Trademark case between Gucci and Forever 21

Gucci filed a lawsuit against Forever 21 for allegedly bashing off its trademark 'blue-red-blue'
and 'green-red-green' stripe, the clothes include a silver bomber jacket, a floral bomber jacket, a
butterfly jumper, a green tiger motif jumper and a choker, all lookalike designs with striped
webbing.

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 Figure 3.3 - Copied clothes of Forever 21 from Gucci
Source - (The Business of Fashion, 2018)

Forever 21 Vs Puma
Forever 21 has also been sued by PUMA with a copyright, trade dress, and design patent
infringement lawsuit in April 2017 for copying its shoes designs from the Fenty Puma Rihanna
Collection in 2017, the company tried hard to get their copied designs off the shelves but failed
to do so as their request was declined twice. (Hays and Hays, 2018)

Also sued by Adidas over the so-called use of the sportswear giant‘s three-stripe trademark on
footwear and clothing which is also currently making its way through the courts.

We see Forever 21 Is involved in a lot of cases for piracy, copyright infringements all of which
could hamper its image and goodwill in the market.

Sued against discriminating employees

A Case filed by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, said that Forever 21 is on the
nail for adopting and enforcing an "unlawful English-Only policy at its flagship San Francisco
store violating the civil rights of its employees and discriminating against them based on their
national origin.‖ According to the suit the company prohibited their employees to speak any
other language than English during their working hours. including during employee rest breaks
and this was primarily imposed against its Spanish-speaking employees. (The Fashion Law,
2018)

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3.1.1.6. Environmental Factors
Environment and sustainability are the biggest challenge for the fashion brands. The brand is
spending in the sustainability activities to use ecofriendly raw materials, packaging and
operations. The sustainable products could influence the consumer buying decision. The
brand is taking critical steps for efficient use of resources and decrease the carbon footprint.

 Forever 21 is focuses on diminishing its ecological impression all through its worldwide
operations.
 The company focuses on transporting their shipments and products through sea as
compare to airfreight in order to decrease the release of carbon emissions in the
atmosphere. One cargo ship can still produce as many pollutants as 50 million cars
annually
 Since there is a lot of energy and electricity wastage Forever 21 has opted for energy
efficient lighting systems in all their new stores in order to cut down the heavy electricity
consumption. On top of their DC warehouse Forever 21 has fixed a 5.1-megawatt solar
installation in 2015, which is estimated to reduce emission of carbon dioxide by 13
million pounds per year.
 Forever 21 recycle and reutilize all their shipment boxes at their distribution center on a
daily basis.
 Use of eco-friendly material in production
Forever 21 should start with more eco-friendly, sustainable fabrics in its clothing production.
The involvement of fabrics from recycled materials would decrease the energy and water
consumption and also reduce the greenhouse gasses emitted during the production processes.
Textile fabrics like recycled wool and polyester could be used.
 Localized Sourcing
By working with nearby suppliers, forever 21 will have the capacity to react the market
demand more proficiently and cut down on usage of resources to create pointless stock.
Furthermore, carbon discharges from the vehicle of goods from industrial facilities to
distribution centres to the retail outlets will be fundamentally decreased. (Rctom.hbs.org,
2018; The Business of Fashion, 2018; Fibre2fashion.com, 2018)

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3.1.2. SWOT Analysis of Forever 21

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSESS
Latest Fashions & Trends Dissatisfaction among the internal team
Multi Channel Exchange Copied Designs
Huge Retail Presence Weak Digital Presence
Affordable Sub par quality of apparels

SWOT ANALYSIS
OF
FOREVER 21

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
Millennia’s craving for the latest trends Financial Condition
Fashion Dynamism High competition in the segment by
Customization Bigger Players

Figure No 3.4 - SWOT Analysis Of Forever 21

3.1.2.1. Strengths
The following are the strengths of Forever 21:

 Latest Fashions & Trends: Forever 21 is a retailer that always focuses on staying in
trend and always serve new hottest trend in all the categories to their customers. It
provides new apparels to their customers very frequently and the regular customer
finds something new in the store almost every week which helps in eliminating the
boredom from shopping.( www.marketing91.com)
 Multi-Channel Exchange: The product bought from the website can be easily
changed or returned at any physical counter of Forever 21 and that is a big relief to all
those dissatisfied customers who didn't receive what they wanted when they ordered
online. This gives more authenticity to their online portal and thus might help the
brand to increase online sales.
 Huge Retail Presence: Forever 21 has the history of setting up huge retail stores
wherever they go and thus in India their stores range from 8000 to 12000 sqft each
and thus offer huge space for the customer to experience the wide variety of
merchandise they offer. This adds up to the retail shopping experience and bigger
display area means more SKU‘s, which further means higher chances of impulsive
buying by the customer and finally leading to higher sales figures for Forever 21.

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  Affordable: Forever 21 provides its innovative products at affordable prices so that
mass audience can follow the latest trends at a lesser price in comparison to what the
competitors offer.

3.1.2.2. Weakness
The following are the weaknesses of Forever 21:

 Dissatisfaction among the internal team: The company‘s decision making depends
upon the promoters of their brand and they are not open to take suggestions from their
stakeholders. Due to which it creates a lot of dissatisfaction amongst designers. Also
the working conditions at Forever 21 are said to be sub par and thus lead to a lot of
tension in the internal team.

 Copied Designs: Due to the mimicking of the designs the customers are not able to
find any fresh designs. They are just copying designs seen on the runways and selling
them at cheaper price. Because of this the apparels they offer become a common style
and nowadays people don't want to opt for the designs that are common. (
www.businessinsider.in)

 Online Hindrances: there are several issues that the online buyers at Forever 21‘s
website come across, like no free deliver below an order of Rs 2500, Restricted
Delivery, no debit cards or internet banking only credit cards accepted, these all
hindrances ruin the shopping experience of the prospect customers and thus leaves a
negative impact on them.

 Sub-Par Quality of Apparels: This is a consistent problem that has been with
Forever 21 since very long, the apparels offered by them have been found to be
subpar in terms of quality.(www.businessinsider.in)

3.1.2.3. Opportunities
The following are the opportunities of Forever 21:

 Millennia‟s craving for the latest trends: Nowadays teenagers and young adults
are not just focusing on the trends but due to peer pressure they are forced to stick to
the fashion norms. As Forever 21 is a fast fashion brand so its serves as a great
opportunity for the brand as by improving their stock turnover rate they can serve a
bigger and better customer profile who is waiting to shop as son as fresh arrivals
drop in.
 Fashion Dynamism: As we know that trends don‘t stay for too long and due to
which the customer tends to shop more for their wardrobe to be filled by latest

39
 fashion. This counts in the opportunity for every fast fashion brands and thus forever
21 can cash in this opportunity.( www.marketing91.com)
 Customization: Nowadays people don‘t prefer to buy the products which the
majority of them are wearing, they prefer to buy clothes in which they can look
different from the crowd and to fulfilling these needs fast fashion brands are doing
their best to provide personalized clothing to their customers.

3.1.2.4. Threats
The following are the threats of Forever 21:

 Financial Condition: ABFR has already suffered a loss of Rs 23 Crores last year and
thus the high costs of maintaining the huge stores and advertising for growth are
eating up ABFR‘s capital ad this causing a financial crisis, if the problem isn‘t sorted
out at the earliest then it can result in even bigger losses in future.
(The Fashion Law, 2018; Labusinessjournal.com, 2018)
 High competition in the segment by Bigger Players: Stores like H&M and Zara,
which are the prime competitors of Forever 21, are offering similar products at almost
similar price and that too with way better quality, thus this counts up to be a very big
threat for Forever 21. (Bhasin, 2018: Vanitynoapologies|Indian Makeup and Beauty
Blog, 2018)

40
 3.1.3. PLC of Forever 21
The product life cycle has 4 very clearly defined stages, each with its own characteristics that
mean different things for business that are trying to manage the life cycle of their products.

The PLC of Forever 21 is as below -

Figure No 3.5 - Product Life Cycle Of Forever 21

Forever 21 entered into the Indian market for the first time in 2010 and received a cold welcome
at first due to already existing competitors and a pre-occupied market which was highly price
sensitive back then. This tough market situation led them to slash their prices by 20% right then
to enter the market and be able to stand and compete.

But still the market forces went against the company‘s entry and forced it to refrain from
expanding and thus kept it that way till 2013 when the company planned to comeback with a
bang and for that they planned to get in alliance with DLF Brands and thus tried to penetrate into
the major cities, it is then when it opened its then flagship store in Mumbai in June 2013. But the
market still gave a lukewarm response to the brand and many shoppers passed by the store even
on the opening day without having a look inside. The then MD DLF Brands said that they plan to
open up 40-50 stores in the next 5 years. (https://www.hindustantimes.com/, 2018)

41
Forever 21 decided to keep working that way until it was acquired by Aditya Birla Fashion and
Retail in 2016 for the Indian Market for around Rs. 175.52 Crores. That was a game changer for
Forever 21 as they boosted the already being recognized brand into the market by opening new
stores (million, 2018)

The recent market share as on March 2017 has gone down from March 2014 which was 27.79%
to 19.11% and there has been a negative percentage change in market share which is – 31%.
Which clearly shows that there has been a degrowth for the brand in the industry.

The current scenario has again brought tough times for the company and they are even
downsizing their retail outlets due to losses they have suffered last year. ABFR has suffered a
loss of around Rs. 23 Crores (approximately 3.45 million US dollars in its retail brands out of
which the major driver is Forever 21. But this isn‘t just the case of Forever 21 but the same has
also happened with the other American Brand GAP as well and in the case of Forever 21 the
losses are due to high costs of maintaining the average 12000 sqft outlets.
(Hitwise.connexity.com, 2018 ; Crossley and Crossley, 2018)

• Thus we may notice in the entire journey of Forever 21 in India in 2010,

Introduction
it witnessed a cold welcome which represented the introduction stage.

• That was followed by the Growth Phase after 2013 which helped
Forever 21 to establish itself as a strong player in the fashion apparel
Growth Brands.

• Then came the Stage where the brand reached its peak which was less
Maturity
than an year ago with approximately 20 stores.

• Decline in market share from 27.79% to 19.11%. Degrowth in the

industry is there because the percentage change in market share has
Decline been a negative 31%.

Figure No. 3.6 - Stages Of Decline Of The Brand

Now is the time for ABFR to plan for a comeback strategy or an exit strategy for
Forever 21 otherwise the brand will hit bigger losses and dent the ABFR Group‟s
bottom line even further.

42
 3.1.4. Michael Porter‟s 5 Forces Model for Competitive Analysis

BARGAINING
POWER OF
BUYERS

BARGAINING
THREAT OF COMPETITIVE
POWER OF
SUBSTITUTES RIVALRY
SUPPLIERS

THREAT OF
NEW
ENTRANTS

Figure No 3.7 - Porters Five force Model

3.1.4.1. Bargaining power of buyers - HIGH

Individual people buying from Forever 21 retail outlets may have less bargaining power, but
what we see in today‘s market scenario is that the collective impact of the buyer‘s bargaining
power is on a very higher side of the graph. This is basically due to a host of factors that come
into play ranging from customer accessibility, customer education and awareness, to cut throat
competition amongst the players in the market. The customers of the 21st century heading to any
fashion retail outlet know that their opinion, choices and preferences are of utmost importance to
the brands as the chances of switching over to different brands have increased a lot and this has
resulted in a very volatile scenario.

This has resulted in lower profits and higher quality standards to meet customer expectations, all
this to just ensure that customer retention and acquisition is happening. And Forever 21 does that

43
quite visibly as it provides the latest fashion trends to its customers at comparatively lower prices
and at very accessible locations to its customers. (Bush, 2018)

3.1.4.2. Bargaining Power of Suppliers - LOW

These Suppliers are the entities that provide raw materials or any part of the raw materials that
Forever 21 uses in order to manufacture its apparels. This power is relatively lower because
brands like Forever 21 have a reputed market standing and thus have a high number of suppliers
ready to supply as associating with a brand like Forever 21 would mean higher volumes and
consistent business.

Thus Forever 21 can manage and manipulate the bargaining power of the suppliers with less
hassle and source raw materials or parts of raw materials ar very competitive prices. Also they
have an option of sourcing materials from various parts of the world, so they can classify kinds
of raw materials on various basis of distinction and then source each kind separately which gives
more opportunity to suppliers and reduces their bargaining power.

3.1.4.3. Threat of New Entrants - MEDIUM

The threat of new entrants is also a medium to weak force in the fashion apparels industry where
giants like Forever 21 and Zara have occupied even the remotest of locations where their target
customers are present and they are still digging deeper. With such great competence and market
back up brands like Forever 21 can easily create very high entry barriers for newer players. To
the most these new entrants can limit to local markets.

Still to enter this highly competitive market with such big players guarding the gate, any new
entrant will have to be very unique in the way they manufacture or sell their product. Also they
would need very deep pockets in order to match the marketing activities of existing players for
keeping their brand visible to the target audience. (Pratap, 2018)

3.1.4.4. Substitutes - HIGH

The fashion apparels industry is densely populated with many strong players with their own
markets and anchor points. Also the customers have lost the quality of being brand loyal to an
extent, which is due to openness in the market and increase in awareness in the customers. This
has led to an intense fight amongst the players to retain their customers and acquire new ones.
Thus losing any customer would mean downsizing the market share as the customer may opt for
the fashion apparels from any other seller.

Thus we can say that the threat of substitutes is a very strong force in the fashion apparels
market. We can say that an empty handed walkout from Forever 21‘s store is gain for Zara and
vice versa.

44
3.1.4.5. Competitive Rivalry - HIGH

The Fashion Apparels market in India is a highly competitive market in today‘s time and offers
very little scope and space for new players to enter and establish. The market was once driven by
brand loyalty and high customer retention rates but now the scenario has completely turned
around by 180 Degrees and now the brands with par quality and competitive prices takes the
trophy, not to forget innovation is a major part of today‘s market direction.(Bush, 2018)

Evolution of Fashion Apparels to what is called fast fashion has also played a major role in
tightening up the competitive rivalry as now latest trends come to the market, sell in great
volumes and fade away as fast as they came. And brands like Forever 21 play this game well
also while keeping the prices low in order to attract large audiences.

3.2. Marketing Analysis

3.2.1. Branding Of Forever 21

Figure No. 3.8 – Logo of Forever 21

“FASHION IS FOR EVRYONE”

Forever 21 focuses to stimulate the shopping experience of its customers by giving them a
appealing and attractive in store environment with latest fashion trends at great value for money.

Also, as the tagline says fashion Is for everyone so, this brand does not say its for a particular
age, it provides clothes for anyone who wants to be trendy, energetic and young in soul.

Forever 21 conveys brands that consider the individual styles of everybody, each size, and each
period of life. Apart from Forever 21 clothing, the brand additionally has 21MEN, Love 21,
Forever 21+ Forever 21 Girls and Love and Beauty. (Anon, 2018)

45
3.2.2. Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning Techniques

Figure No 3.9 - Segmentation, targeting and positioning process

3.2.2.1. Segmentation
The market segmentation strategy of Forever 21 is that it uses the mix of the psychographic,
demographic and geographic segmentation.

The variables like age, expectations, gender, income group, region, family size, loyalty, social
class, price sensitivity, personality attributes, and lifestyle.

Also as these factors are taken into consideration, the segment based on geographic location of
the audience needs to be socially presentable and which will lead them to go shopping more
often, thus geographically segmenting the customers can be useful for Forever 21.

Also in the Indian market scenario, the urban lifestyle generally inspires the fashion outlook of
the people in the Suburbs and thus selectively segmenting on the basis of geographic location
can be a very useful long term tool for Forever 21.

3.2.2.2. Market Targeting

Forever 21 has a target audience of young women and men ranging from age 18 to 25 that are
seeking to keep up with the latest styles at a fairly reasonable price. However, even though this is
the targeted audience of Forever 21, many different people from many different backgrounds and
age groups choose to shop at Forever 21 simply because it offers almost everything someone
needs at a very competitive price.

46
Also as discussed before, it targets the audience near the urban spots at all the major cities in
India just to be the style leader in the urban as well as suburb areas. This gives a better
conversion ratio to each retail outlet and cost per walk in decreases. These are very small factors
but with a chain of so many stores all around the country it surely makes an impact on the overall
working of Forever 21.

If we talk about the price sensitivity of the segments then the targeted audience is fairly price
sensitive but not very strictly and it lands somewhere in the middle of the range. Which is why
the latest fashion apparels at Forever 21 come at an attractive price.

3.2.2.3. Positioning:

Figure No 3.10 - Perceptual Mapping Of Forever 21

Forever 21 has over the years established itself as a pocket friendly fashion & apparels brand in
India and has a very large and loyal customer base which has developed only because of the
price and retail experience they provide.

47
Thus to the target audience the brand seems to be an affordable option against the Zara‘s
expensive impact and image amongst the modern day shoppers looking for upscale and latest
market trends at affordable prices. Also due to increase in women employment in the urban
regions of India the young to middle aged women are becoming self-dependent and thus
appreciate the concept of Forever 21 offering latest fashion and trends at affordable prices.

(Process and Process?, 2018 ; Smart Insights, 2018)

Figure No. 3.11 - STP process

48
3.2.3. DILO

Day in the Life of Studies (DILOs) give us and the

client a powerful insight into what‘s really happening
―on the shop floor‖…
What is a DILO ?
 A DILO is a minute by minute review of each activity performed by an individual as
well as observations, quotes, comments or any other data collected by the person
performing the study.

Why use a DILO?

 To show a client a detailed ―film‖ of what really happens day to day in his operation
 To identify the types, quantity and cause of non value added quantities
 To assess supervisory behaviors and effectiveness
 To identify operational issue, their root causes and impeccability
 To gain the understanding and culture

How to conduct a DILO –

• The study should be conducted over a full shift or working day
• Know beforehand what the individual‘s working hours,break over-runs, early finishes
• Detail, detail, detail, detail. Collect as much detail during the study as possible
• Take detailed notes- should not rely on memory
• First question to ask is, ―What‘s the job and?
• Don‘t let the subject spend too much time explaining things.
• The text of the DILO should refer to the person you are following as
‗subject‘—no names.
• Write down quotes about the job, organization, etc. They can be
powerful material.

(ToolsHero, 2018 ; Tools4Management, 2018)

49
 DILO CHART
Time activity ( main) Activity detail Duration Value added (yes
or no)

7:00 -8:30 Wake up Radio 30-40 minutes NO

Sit with family TV 30 minutes
Breakfast Mobile 10 minutes
Magazine 10 minutes

8:30-9:30 Travelling to Car 1 hour YES

work/college Auto
Carpool
Metro

9:30-6:30 work/college Internet 9 hours YES

Magazines
Music
Books
Mobile

6:30-7:30 Travel Hoardings 1 hour YES

home/meet Magazine
friends Internet
Radio

7:30-9:00 Dinner/Outing At home 1 hour 30 NO

Relatives minutes
Restaurants
5-Stars

9:00-11:00 Night Out Clubs 2 hours YES

Bars
Disco‘s
Lounge

11:00-1:00 Go to bed Rest 2 hours YES

Sit with family
Chat
Work

50
The key to a successful study is in the planning & set up…

• have been briefed by the analyst as to the key issues in the area.
• are clear on the objectives of the study, the outputs required the information to the study.
• have met the supervisors/ operates the day before the study and set the study up properly.
• have checked the day and would be typical and not running on unusual products or the wrong
study.
• have the basic understanding of the areas via interviews etc.

Some value added / non value added activity categories: Value added:
- working on job ( give job no. or description)
- working in workshop ( give product name)
- receiving direction from the supervisor
- safety from job
-filling in system documentation/entering required data from the system

Non value added:

- waiting for work

- no job allocated
- between jobs
- unofficial/excessive breaks
- late start
- over run on breaks
- early finish
- pick up parts( tools) Figure No - 3.12 Value added vs Non
- pacing - (the job/compare the timings of the previous one) value added
- waiting time
- job not completed first time( reason)

51
 Figure No - 3.13 Difference between weekday and weekend

If we see the amount of time a consumer spends watching TV on a weekday as well as on a

weekend is 84%. On one hand, where the consumer spends 71% of the day, searching and
browsing stuff online, on the other hand a high difference is seen as the consumer spends 58%
time during weekend. Understanding the time spent by the consumer on different activities
during a day, we can say that more focus should be given on digital activities and making a
connection through social media, as Forever 21 is a youth centric brand, activities undertaken
can be social media engagement, advertising and making them aware about offers and discounts.

Figure No - 3.14 Average day of consumer

52
The best time to reach the consumer is during the day, where in the morning major time goes
into commuting and working, so the best way to reach out will be through radio as that is when a
person is driving/commuting to work. During the day the best way to reach out will be through
social media including Fa ebook, twitter and instagram. Advertising on televisions on channels
like MTV, VH1, Channel V will be effective as 50% of people relax between time 7pm till
midnight

3.2.4. ANSOFF‟s Matrix

Ansoff matrix is a matrix method in order to decide on investment or expansion strategies by the
companies. This method was discovered by Igor Ansoff. This helps a company decide whether to
invest in new product, or new market or both or none of the above. The decision majorly
depends upon various factors like, market scenario, brand‘s area of competence and financial
stability of the brand.

Figure No. 3.15 - ANSOFF matrix

According to the ansoff matrix, Forever 21 used the following strategies for its expansion:

Market Development

In market development strategy, brand tries to expand itself into different markets with the help
of its existing products.

Forever 21 expanded itself globally by operating over 600 stores under Forever 21 and its sub
brands which are XXI Forever, For Love 21, Heritage !981, and Reference banners. Forever 21
has its presence throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea, and the Phillipines.
Basically it has its presence in Asia, America, Europe and Ocenia. (Forbes, 2018)

In 2010, Forever 21 entered into India with Dubai based Sharaf group and in 2013 it stepped into
the partnership with DLF brand and with the help of that they opened 5 more stores.

After associating with Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd in 2016, the brand added more seven
stores and expanded itself in Mumbai, Chennai, Siliguri, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Ahmedabad, and
Indore (recently) (Apparel Resources, 2018)

53
They expanded itself by selling its products online with the help of different e-commerce channel
like Myntra, Amazon, Flipkart. With growing demand, the brand launched its exclusive
websites (www.forever21.com/In) for the Indian market in June 2014.

Forever 21 expanded itsself geographically but the brand did not conduct proper research for
Indian market. In India they introduced the product as it is what they were offering outside
India. The products offered were not as per Indian trend. They did not understand the need of the
customers in India.

Market Penetration

In market penetration strategy, the company expand its current market by offering existing
products. In India, Forever 21 followed the market penetration strategy by opening 22 stores
throughout the country. The stores have its exclusive stores in India as they opened all its stores
in the malls which helps them to cater large number of footfall.

And now also when Forever 21 is looking at downsizing their stores, they should look at
expansion strategies they can adopt in order to sustain or revive in the market.

Thus increasing accessibility is the best option that they can opt for in this packed competitive
environment. And for that they should look forward at market penetration as a viable step in
order to secure future and prevent from future downsizing.

3.2.5. Boston Consultancy Group Matrix

The Boston Consultancy Group Matrix puts each of the verticals/categories/products offered by a
company/brand on a scale of two factors, namely:

 Market Growth
 Market Share
When Forever 21 entered into the Indian market under the umbrella of Aditya Birla Fashion and
Retail Limited it was really low on the market share due to very less reach, accessibility,
awareness and market standing, but soon as it was being funded under such a big brand name of
ABFR Group it gained pace in terms of market growth and soon it grew very fast and became
very famous amongst the youth and thus drifted towards high growth – high market share
quadrant in a few years(star position). (Aditya Birla Group, 2018)

Although in today‘s time, Forever 21 is losing its pace in terms of market growth, due to decline
in sales as there was a there still is a huge customer base that it commands and a wide network
base that keeps it alive and kicking in the Fashion Apparel's Competitive Market. (Das, 2018;
Aditya Birla Group. (2018).

54
 Figure No. 3.16 - BCG Matrix of Forever 21

3.3. Merchandising Analysis

3.4. Retail Mix

3.4.1. Product Mix

Forever 21 sell Shopping goods which are heterogeneous in nature and come under in the
durable category of the merchandise. Below is an example of Forever 21‘s product mix of
women category.

PRODUCTS AT F 21

55
BREADTH

56
 WOMEN
SHORTS AND
Coats and JEANS JUMPERS SKIRTS
TOPS
DRESSES Jackets LINGERIE Dungarees AND Denim
Crop
Tunic Faux fur LOUNGEWE Flare CARDIGANS
Camis Tailored
Bomber AR Mid-rise Sweatshirts
T-shirt Soft
Vests jackets Robes Low-rise Hoodies
Party dresses Skinny Jumper dresses Suede
T-shirts Parka, Slips
Maxi Bootcut Cropped Faux Leather
Bodysuits Dusters, Pajamas jumpers
Midi LEGGINGS
High Neck Utility jackets Briefs Aline
Mini Joggers
Check Shirts Trench coats, Skater
Bras Trousers
Daywear Blazers Maxi
Blouses
shift Leather look Wide legged
Kimonos Midi
denim tailored and
skinny mini

SHIRTS POLOS
VESTS
TSHIRTS

HOODIES AND TROUSERS JEANS

SWEATSHIRTS SHORTS JOGGERS
CHINOS

MEN FOOTWEAR
ACCESSORIES SLIPPER
SOCKS SANDALS
GLOVES LOAFERS
HATS WEDGES
TIES CARDIGANS, HEELS BOOTS
BELTS JACKETS AND
COATS,JUMPE
UNDERWEAR R

Figure No. 3.17 - Products offered by Forever 21 in Men and Women Category

57
 Products and Categories

Forever 21 Women
Category Sub-Category MRP Range
Clothing Dresses 2399 - 629
Tops 3099 - 179
Sweaters & Knits 3019 - 699
Jackets & Coats 4549 - 999
Denim 4549 - 909
Leggings 1599 - 399
Pants 2249 - 909
Shorts 1899 - 239
Skirts 2249 - 549
Rompers & Jumpsuits 2599 - 689
Active Wear 2099 - 349
Intimate & Lounge 1899 - 249
Swimwear 1999 - 399

Accessories Jewelry 2599 - 99

Bags & Wallets 2199 - 269
Beauty 1099 - 129
Hair Accessories 699 - 69
Sunglasses & Eyewear 999 - 399
Scarves & Gloves 1199 - 269
Belts 1799 - 269
Hats 1449 - 269
Socks & Tights 849 - 129
Home & Gifts 1499 - 149

Shoes Boots 3299 - 1299

Heels 2699 - 1399
Wedges 2399 - 1799
Flats 2299 - 249
Sneakers 2329 - 899
Sandals & Flip Flops 2199 - 249
Slippers 1199 - 799

Table No 3.1 – Women Products and their ranges

58
 21 Men
Category MRP Range
Tees & Tanks 1889 - 239
Shirts & Polos 2199 - 799
Sweaters & Cardigans 2399 - 999
Sweatshirts & Hoodies 2399 - 900
Jackets & Coats 5549 - 1000
Denim 2699 - 999
Pants 2699 - 999
Shorts 1999 - 669
Underwear & Socks 1299 - 329
Hats & Scarves 999 - 329
Accessories 1449 - 269
Swim 1199 - 669

Table No 3.2– Men Products and their ranges

59
 Brand Name – Forever 21

Category – Women Jackets & Coats

Assortment Table

Selection Parameter Numbers

Style/Design Denim Jackets, Moto Jackets, 9
Bomber Jackets, Utility
Jackets. Varsity Jackets, Faux
Leather, Blazers, Coats, Vests
Size Small, Medium, Large 3
Colour Sky Blue, Peach, Olive, 27
Black, Grey, Ivory, Khaki,
Camel, Navy, Brown, Cream,
Yellow, Blue, Gold, Pink,
Red, Medium Denim, Denim,
Beige, Rust, Silver, Green,
White, Rust, Mauve, Light
Denim, Hot Pink
Price Range 999 – 4549 3
999-1999, 1999-3999,3999-
4549
Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) = 9 × 3 × 27 × 3 = 2187

60
3.4.2. Promotion Mix
The promotion aspect comprises of the communication mix which includes
the Advertising, Personal Selling, Direct Marketing, Sales Promotions,
Publicity and Public Relations.
FOREVER 21 has various promotional policies which includes social media
platforms like Instagram. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, blogs to create
awareness about the brand. Official Forever 21 websites is there which
provides information related to latest offers and incentives offered during the
year. (Bhasin et al., 2018)

Advertising on Social Media Platforms

Twitter

Figure No 3.18 – Twitter Advertising

In Twitter it can be seen Forever 21 has about 596 followers, 19.7k tweets, the brand in indulged
in putting tweets several times daily about the trending clothes, posts of quotes in relation to
brand and general with some of theme aligning to the them of the brand , Also fashion look posts
are there which can do the work of inspiration to buy those looks which are trending .
(Twitter.com, 2018)

61
Instagram Advertising

Figure 3.19 - Instagram Advertising by Forever 21

Occasion wise advertisements have been put like they had put a FLAT 21% OFF on
everything in both Online and Offline modes of shopping on their birthday

For friendship day they did a very strong customer engagement strategy, wherein the
customers had to tag their best friends with hashtag “#F21BFFBATTLES” and keep on
doing so to form the longest chain of best friends then the BFFs will tag another of their
BFFs by replying on the comment, they tag another friend, and so on & so forth.
And the 5 Longest chains would win vouchers worth Rs 2000!
#F21FriendshipDay #F21BFFBattles#TagYourBFF

They had put BOGO Offers for end of season sale. They had done a campaign which was
―Sometimes an excuse, sometimes a sad one. Happy I Forgot Day!

Which was again done to engage customers on their page and get responses so that people
feel connected with the brand on all occasions and feel that brand pays equal importance to
the emotions of the customer. (Instagram, 2018)

62
 Figure No 3.20 –Pinterest Advertising

Source - (https://in.pinterest.com)

Forever 21 uses Pinterest as one of the platforms because there is a high focus on visual content
where in there are pins of flat lays, where there are all kinds of trending clothing which are put to
attract the traffic on website.

Pinterest is one of their most preferred platforms as it stimulates more sales through web
referrals and click throughs than any other social Media Platform, also Pinterest is currently the
second most popular social media platform for brands to advertise.

Forever 21 used this platform for posting pictures like ‗OOTD (Outfit of The Day) to give
inspiration on how to wear their clothes. With 502.3k followers, the brand aims to convert those
followers into customers.
The purpose is to keep a constant flow of pins attract the follower‘s attention. These followers
can re pin images onto other boards, increasing the brands customer reach. A report from Steel
House shows consumers are 79% more likely to buy from seeing something on Pinterest than
anywhere else online. (Marketme.co.uk, 2018)

63
 Figure 3.21 - Facebook Marketing done By forever 21

Facebook is another widely used marketing platform by Forever21 by mainly using visuals. They
keep putting up events, trends and promotions on this – sometimes exclusive to their followers!
The Facebook page is a fun and cool way of looking at everything Forever 21 has to offer.
Although in India still there is a long way to go when advertising is concerned because same
platforms are used extensively abroad wherein they put all kinds up campaigns on face book to
integrate their other marketing campaigns at other platforms where ads have been put and
promote on face book.

There are visuals of latest trending fashion on the page which include Denims, Buckle up skirts,
Fur clothes, wide legged pants, and so on.
Also, they have put their fall down picture as the cover page since it shows the change of season
clothing. Apart from that there are ads about various events being help, shopping contests, details
about new store openings. (Facebook, 2018)

64
 Buy one get one offer Advertisement on Facebook

Figure No 3.22 - Facebook Cover page of Forever 21 for Fall Down

65
Website Advertising
The next very common way used buy forever 21 is the ecommerce marketing done by them,
they put up discounts on their official websites for customers, so as soon as the site is opened
a pop up menu comes which specifies the discount offered by them, which will attract the
customer at the very first place and thus the visitor of the website would browse further
which would lead to high chances of conversion. (Forever21.com, 2018)

Figure No. 3.23 - Discounts at Forever 21’s website

Figure no. 3.24 - Offers and Discounts by the brand on Amazon

Apart from that they also give ads on online portals like Myntra.com and amazon.com to
promote their brand wherein they list the discounts, cashbacks offered to attract customers.

66
To create and maintain top of the mind awareness it is important for a brand to do effective
advertising, we see forever 21 giving its ads and discounts on amazon.com, since its one of
the leading online portals in India, has high customer traffic and it needed to distinguish itself
amongst the pool of brands.
International Promotion Strategies

Platforms for promotions remain similar like Pinterest, Facebook, Online website
advertising, Additions would be Coupons and offers , Promocodes are given.

Figure No 3.25 - International Promotion Strategies

In the above collage there are discount coupons for university students, BOGO offers are
there, Stuff a bag, strategy all these are sales promotion tactics, which are there to attract
customers and make a boost in sales. Also there are offers for only online platforms which
would help increase the online traffic of the website and would help in generating sale from
the online portals.

Monday deals promotion this would be there to bring footfall on a day when traffic is
generally low, if a deal is offered on such a day it would attract customers and help the brand
generate sales on a low performing day.

Social Media platforms like Pinterest and face book are also prominent for promotion
activities of the brand internationally. They integrated the two platforms for the promotion
that means a campaign running on Pinterest was promoted through face book. A Perfect
example of Integrated marketing Communication.

67
 Figure No 3.26 – Forever 21 Campaign

In June 2018, Forever did a campaign called ―„Love is Free‟ Pin it & Win it,‖ this contest
ran for 11 days and the basic aim behind this was to promote the presence of the brand on
Pinterest.
Fans created a pin board titled ―#Love is Free‖ and uploaded five original pins that inspired
their love for summer. Participants got a chance to win a gift card worth $210.
They promoted this contest on Facebook and received 1,009 likes, 48 comments and 28
shares on the first day itself. When they posted a few days before the contest ended (June
22nd), they received 1,295 likes, 39 comments and 26 shares. With a focus on highly visual
content, Pinterest was the perfect social platform to use for this contest. (#26, 2018)

68
3.4.3. Presentation
(Based on the Forever 21‘s store at DLF Mall of India)

Elements of Visual Merchandising are:

Store Exterior

Forever 21 stores have one entrance which is used for entrance and exit both.

Figure No 3.27 – Entrance of Forever 21 at DLF Mall of India

 Window Display: Forever 21 follow the Open back window display. Retailers who
believe that the entire store should be visible to the consumer from the outside, yet
feel the need to feature conventional window display, often choose the open back
window structure.

69
 Figure No 3.28 –Window Display of Forever 21

Store Layout:

Forever 21 store‘s store is 7000 square feet which includes the Management room, server
room and trial room. Earlier the store size was 14500 square feet but due to less sales it has
been decreased to 7000 square feet. The sale area of the store is 6000 square feet. The store
has 16 CCTV cameras and 16 fire extinguishers.

70
 Figure No 3.29 – Store Layout of Forever 21

Store Interior

Forever 21‘s store interior create a comfortable environment inside due to which the
customers feel relax and free to spend their time at store. They always play English songs
and mostly they play songs of new singers of USA and the organization sends the song
collection to every store of Forever 21 and Bollywood songs are strictly prohibited for
playing the songs.

Interior Display

Forever 21 follow the open display so that customers are able to self-select the merchandise
if sales personnel are not available. They follow Related-merchandise display which means
grouping items that can be used together.

The types of fixtures that are used by Forever 21 for displaying of clothes are:

Straight rack, Round stand, Four-way faceout, shelves and tables.

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Figure No 3.30– Fixture used by Forever 21 for displaying of Visual Merchandising

Figure No 3.31 – Shoes and Accessories display at Forever 21

72
In addition to the above elements there are other elements that help in a successful visual
merchandising. They are:

Mannequins:

Forever 21 have Semi-realistic mannequins with an indistinctness of the facial features.

The wig and make up may look more abstract and less realistic. It is proportioned and
sculpted like a realistic mannequin with makeup that is neither natural nor artificial. It is
more decorative than realistic and stylized.

Figure No 3.32 – Presentation through Mannequins at Forever 21

Lighting:

Forever 21 follows the primary lighting means they light out the overall store.

Colour:

Forever 21 use the ―Street light‖ colour for lighting

73
3.4.4. Price Mix

Price is another element of Marketing Mix which helps the company to gain competitive
advantage from others. Pricing might act as a key driver in bringing in customers.

Figure No 3.33 – Types of Pricing Strategies

Pricing Strategies

There are various pricing strategies which can be used are EDLP, Loss Leader pricing
Geographic pricing and so on.

Forever 21 follows Economic pricing strategy which means that assigning the products at
low price also this strategy attracts the most price conscious customers. Due to which it
becomes the pocket-friendly products. It provides the fast fashion products at a lower price to
the customers who are not able to buy products of high range. Due to the low prices, the
customer would prefer to buy the products for their daily uses as the quality is not so good
that they can have them in their important events and functions and for their important
function and event they prefer to buy from Forever 21‘s competitors which are H&M and
Zara.

Apart from economic pricing strategy, it uses the other pricing strategies like product
bundling pricing, psychological pricing, and promotional pricing.

Product Bundling Pricing they bundle the product and then price it where the individual
cost of the product is more than product in bundle for example if you buy a jean it will cost
you around 700 but when you buy 2 jeans together it cost you around 1200 so this is known
as product bundle pricing.

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Psychological pricing is a pricing/marketing strategy based on the theory that certain prices
have a psychological impact on the customer‘s behavior. This strategy builds up an illusion
in the mind of the consumers that they are getting more value at a lower price whereas the
difference in price remains minute. This pricing strategy is used by Forever 21 by expressing
the retail prices at an odd number which is a little less than the round number, so the
customer thinks he got the product at a lesser price .For example deals at 99, dresses starting
at 799, 1499 and so on.

Promotional Pricing, it is a marketing strategy where products are temporarily priced very
low to increase short-term sales. Mostly these are deals for a very short period of time, such
deals might increase traffic of the store for a shorter period of time.

Below are a few examples of Pricing strategy at Forever 21.

Figure No 3.34 –Pricing Strategiesat Forever 21

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 3.4.5. Place
Location of the store

Forever 21 has over 600 stores all over the world and specifically in India it has about 22
stores.

Figure No 3.36 – Location of Forever 21’s store in India

The Brand has its presence in Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal,
Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gujarat, Punjab.

And worldwide Stores can be found throughout the U.S. and in Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea,
and the Philippines, (basically Asia, America, Europe, Oceania.) (Forever21.com, 2018)

76
Stores in Delhi/ NCR

Distribution channel needs to be taken care of also how the product had to be sold through
online channel, offline in stores or both. So forever 21 uses both the channels that is offline
and online platforms.

Forever 21 uses selective distribution strategy and not multiple distribution strategy because
that could result in cannibalization. In this distribution strategy there are limited number of
outlets in a geographical area to sell the products. The stores are generally located in malls in
India.

The store location is very important like the one in DLF Mall of India, Noida is very
appealing and visible because of its surrounding environment clean, elegant, safe, and
engaging. If the nearby environment is always crowded, then locating the store can be
confusing due to the way the mall is designed.

Talking about the inventory level, forever 21 did a one-time inventory hit which left them
with a lot of stock in hand which were mostly slow movers and the brand did not know what
to do with huge stock left out. So, this shows there is a need for the brand to manage their
stocks and inventory level.

Forever 21 follows the Global Strategy which means that the organization treats the world as
largely one market and one source of supply with little local variation and because of this
strategy the company is declining because they are not offering products to Indian customers
as per the Indian culture.

3.4.6. Service Mix

Forever 21 Types of Goods – Forever 21 offer tangible goods with accomplished services as
they provide apparels, accessories and footwear and with this they also provide staff services
which helps customers to locate the products‘ size and help in billing process.

Range of Customer Service

 Basic Services

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  Convenient Location - There are total 17 store of Forever 21 in India and most of the
stores are located in malls. Due to which the customers can easily locate the store in
nearby their place and by locating in the malls they tends to increase footfall at their
stores.
 Availability of products at any time – The products are accessible to the customers
at any time they want. Example – online shopping, Forever 21 products are
accessible to its customers on their website so that anyone who don‘t have time to
visit physical store they can buy the products online.
 Availability of stock –When we see from the point of view of forever 21 the
availability of stock is not uniform and constant in all the store and one of the reason
of declining of brand Forever 21 that they have inventory mismanagement that means
they have so much of stocks kept at their store that it become difficult for them to get
away with it. Another reason is sometime the product that customer want is also not
available according to their size, so this shows that their inventory management is not
up to the mark.

 Variable Services
 Sale Staff: The staff is friendly and courteous and possess average product
knowledge but through our primary research and observation it comes to notice that
there is a lot for improvement in the staff having product knowledge and there is no
uniform of the staff. But the issue of lack of staff availability in time of need is very
high.
 Sales Support at Service Desk: The support at service desk is not up to the mark but
the staff courteousness is pretty good as they greet the customer and solve their
queries related to discount, pricing and exchange of products.
 Special Services: In this they provide the gift according to the customer needs
 Service in relation to price and product complexity
When we look from the point of Forever 21, the nature of the product is not complex, and the
prices of the products are not high so they come under low price range, low complexity and
use efficient self service

3.4.7. Quality Service

The following are the quality of services of Forever 21 :

Tangible: the quality of the product is not up to the mark this we came to know by
conducting a survey

Experience: The ambience of the store is ok and the services of the staff is also nice so the
overall experience of shopping form forever 21 is average according to the survey that we
did.

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 Competence & Diligence: The staff member of forever 21 has sound knowledge of the
products and provides complete support to the customers.

3.5. Consumer Analysis

BRAND NAME RESULTS
GAP 700

FOREVER 21 575

ZARA 812

H&M 794

AEROPOSTALE 636

Table No 3.3 - Competitors Analysis

Interpretation: From, the above result we can clearly interpret that amongst the other
competitive brands of forever 21 Zara holds the maximum share and is ranked 1 in the
consumers‘ minds as it is the most preferred brand amongst all other competitive brands with a
total of 812 on ranking basis.

Similarly, we can clearly see the position held by Forever 21 is the in the last leg with a sum of
ranking of 575 which is the lowest amongst all others. Hence it means that it is the least
preferred brand by consumers with respect to its competitors where H&M holds second rank
followed by GAP and Aeropostale.

Chart No 3.1 - Competitors Analysis

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Since we haven‘t done an in depth study about the competitors Gap, Zara , H&M, Aeropostale,
with respect in this research , hence this can be further investigated.

From the above chart, it can be interpreted that Zara and H&M are the biggest competitors of
Forever 21.

Figure No. 3.37 - Frequency Of Visit Of Customers For Forever 21 Is Less

Interpretation: From the above output summary of data after applying Mode as a statistical tool
to find out the frequency of visit of consumers for the brand is maximum in ― Once in a year‖
which means that mostly the consumers visit the brand once in a year which would mean that
this brand is not frequently visited by the consumers who were studied in the survey and one of
the reasons for the decline for the brand could be due to the declined footfall and thus leading to
decreased sales of Forever 21. Also, according to our secondary data, we can see that the sales of
the brand has declined and led to negative change in market share 27.79% to 19.11%
(Hitwise.connexity.com, 2018)

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 Figure No. 3.38- Price, quality and trendiness factors of Forever 21

Interpretation:

From the above output summary after applying Correlation, trendiness is the least important
quality that people associate with the products of Forever 21 as the Pearson‘s correlation value
is +.39 which is means there is a weak correlation between the two variables . Here the quality
possessed by the brand is high where as the trendiness associated with it is less. Since, the brand
is targeting customer of age group 18-25 and this age band is more trend conscious than quality
conscious but the brand is being recommend here because of quality.

Also, we see that there is a positive relation between the two variables price and quality as the
correlation value is the pricing of the products is high the consumers will perceive that the
quality is also high and if the price is low then the perception of quality of the products being
low is also there.

In case of Forever 21, we see that products are of low quality and the pricing is also coming
under affordable range. And its competitors‘ brands like H&M and Zara have slightly high
quality products and are high priced as compared to Forever 21 this can be observed from our
primary observation as well as secondary research sources.(Business Insider, 2018) Therefore,
the shift of customers is there towards competitors brands in terms of quality and thus leading to
declining sales and could be one of the reasons for its downfall.

But since the data is not available for customers of Zara and H&M therefore statistical analysis
of competitive brands cannot be done and it requires further investigation.

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 Figure No. 3.39 - Brand Recommendations and Related Parameters For The Same

Interpretation

From the above output summary, we can see that colors are least appreciated in the mind of
customers while recommending the brand as it has the correlation value of +.07.

Also, the trendiness feature is also low while recommending Forever 21 and has a moderately
strong positive correlation with a value of +.41 , means if the clothes were trendy enough the
recommendations made by the consumers would have been high but, is not so because the
clothes are mostly of trends followed in the Foreign market whereas the trends Indian consumer
looks forward to could be different therefore the brand should focus on providing trends
according to the expectations of the Indian Consumers. This was an observation through primary
observation. Also the brand needs to work on the colors of the clothes provided by the brand.

Chart No 3.2 - Preferred Platform Of Buying

From the above graph we can clearly interpret that 37.3% people prefer buying the products
online and along with that there is a huge chunk of population buying products from both

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platforms which is offline and online even then it would come out be that most people prefer
buying clothes offline. Since the involvement of online and offline factor is there in both
category which means obviously the number of people buying the products offline is more

Chart No 3.3 - Visual Merchandising Parameters Of Forever 21

Interpretation:

From the above chart we can interpret that the highest rating for forever 21 goes to mannequin
styling and window display. Second most favored feature is the lighting and music of the brand.
Product display is rated mostly 2 which means that the consumers find that the product display is
not very appealing and due to this it might be possible that the customers find it difficult to
access the products and this might lead to dissatisfaction amongst the consumers.

Chart No 3.4 - Platforms for Marketing and Promotions

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 Interpretation:

From the above chart we can clearly see that the consumers mostly know about the brand from
social media and friends and relatives. So we see that mostly the people are exposed social media
platforms and therefore get to know about the brand from there or, through friends and relatives.

Since website ads is one of the least exposed platforms for awareness then, the brand could focus
more on website ads for its marketing strategies.

Detailing

Round neckline
Dropped Shoulders

Allover stripe pattern

Distressed design
Long sleeves

Available in Colour: Cream/Black, Black/Red

Distressed Stripe Sweater Size: Small, Medium, Large

Foldover off-the-shoulder
neckline
Multicoloured Stripe design
Long sleeves

Available in Colour: Cream/Navy

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Multistripe Off-the-Shoulder Cable-Knit Sweater

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 Available in Colour: Ivory/Black
Size: Small, Medium, Large

Basic collar
V-neckline
Dropped Shoulders
Vertical stripe design
Long button-cuff sleeves
Horizontal stripe design

Collared Stripe Top

Round neckline

Front sequin floral design

Long sleeves

Available in Colour: Black/Rose

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Sequin Floral Sweater

Round neckline

Form-fitting silhouette

Long tiered trumpet sleeves

Available in Colour: Heather Grey and Black

colour
Size: Small, Medium, Large
Ribbed Knit Trumpet Sleeve Top
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 Basic collar

Chest patch pocket

Button front

Allover floral pattern

Long button cuff sleeves

Available in Colour: White/Green

Size: Small, Medium, Large
Floral Button Shirt

Basic collar

Button-flap chest pockets

Button front

Long sleeves

Available in Colour: Light Denim, Black, Dark Denim

Size: Small, Medium, Large
Classic Denim Jacket

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 Drawstring hood

Available in Colour: Navy/Red

Size: Small,Medium, Large

Long sleeves with stripe panels

Front kangaroo pocket

Fleece Varsity Hoodie

Faux fur lined basic collar

Available in Colour: Olive
Size: Small, Medium, Large
Zip-front
Frontsnap-button flap pocket
Long sleeves
Ribbed contrast elasticized cuff

Faux Fur Bomber Jacket

Shawl collar

Open front

Long cuffed sleeves

Patch pockets

Available in Colour: Heather Grey, Taupe, Olive

Size: Small, Medium, Large
Knit Shawl Cardigan
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 Hook-and-bar closure
Slanted front pockets
Zip fly

Available in Colour: Denim/White

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Pinstriped pattern

Flared jeans

Pinstriped Flared Jeans

Elasticized drawstring waist

Available in Colour: Oatmeal/Coral

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Striped accent

Elasticized ankles

Striped PJ Pants
Elasticized ankles

88
 Drawstring waist

Available in Colour: Black/Burgundy

Size: Small, Medium, Large
Contrasting side stripes

Allover glen plaid pattern

Relaxed fit

Glen Plaid Drawstring Pants

Banded elasticized waist

Available in Colour: Blue/Multi

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Retro striped

Tie-dye print

Active Striped Tie-Dye Leggings

89
 Elasticized waist
Attached self-tie sash
Pleated design

Allover floral print

Available in Colour: Black/Pink

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Skirt length - Mini

Floral Pleated Mini Skirt

Zip fly

Distressed design

Available in Colour: Black

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Distressed Skinny Jeans

90
 Zip fly front

Raw-cutout knees

Available in Colour: Khaki, Olive

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Raw-Cut Slim-Fit Jeans

Zip fly
Front mock zipper pocket

Moto-inspired topstitching at thighs

Seam construction at knees

Available in Colour: Light Denim

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Slim Fit Moto-Inspired Jeans

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 Elasticized waistband with contrast drawstring

Front contrast zip pocket

Snap-button sides

Available in Colour: Heather Grey

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Snap-Button Moto Joggers

Front slant pocket

Available in Colour: Charcoal

Size: Small, Medium, Large

Elasticized ankles

Garment-Dyed Chino Joggers

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 Chapter 4 – Limitations
The research report has some limitations attached to it since all aspects of the research cannot
be covered in a shorter period. Also, everything cannot be done and known to a researcher as
there is always a scope of improvement. So some of the aspects are mentioned below-

Few limitations in the research which I would like to bring light on, Firstly there is a time
constraint attached in this research since we have a deadline to submit the report and it
cannot be done for like months, so a research report made over a longer period of time would
have a more detailed analysis and could be much more elaborated since the variables of the
research could be studied in a more elongated.

Since there was a time constraint attached therefore it automatically dragged in geographical
restrictions, which say that the study was limited to the area of Delhi NCR hence all aspects
of research could not be included or to put it more clearly the no of respondents were less and
thus the variation which was possible to see in the study with large sample size could not be
fulfilled. So, there could be a lacking in finding out the current scenario of the brand in the
consumer of other places in India who are potential shoppers of the brand and other parts of
the world in a detailed way. As the perceptions of consumers vary from place to place, and
age wise as well , so a shorter geographical restrictions means limited sample size , study is
limited to its sample size of 216, which is less in terms of the population size which is huge
and if the sample size would have been larger more accurate results could have been drawn
this was due to time constraint in carrying out the research.

Financial Constraints attached to the research also brought in some disturbances in the study
as there were financial constraints which brought in geographical constraints also because in
order to visit more retail stores of the brand at different locations and cities we need money
that would facilitate travel expenses. Also reaching out different consumers at different
places would have required travelling and thus financial constraints came into the picture as a
result the study limited itself to Delhi NCR region only.

Also, being a student researcher we would lack an experience in this area and there could be
a lot of scope for study and improvement in the research. Since it is a learning phase and with
practice comes knowledge and expertise therefore it is possible that while researching some
points could have been left.

Technological constraints are also one of the hindrances as we did not have high level
research tools which if used could have been made the results and research more accurate.
Lack of knowledge about other available software‘s and lack of knowledge of using those
software‘s could also be one hindrance which if used could have given better analysis and
brought in maybe more accuracy and reliability of the study.

93
 Chapter 5 - Insights

While carrying out a research, there are chances of new content and inferences been drawn
always, apart from what is already stated in the researches there are our own insights grasped
from the research.

Firstly, while studying the marketing strategies of the brand while doing the pestle analysis we
could infer that the brand is using good technological features like AI Visual search, and using
that the fast fashion brand saw a 20% increase in average purchase value for the two
categories dresses and tops and along with that there was an increase in the sales conversion
was noticed.(Chain Store Age, 2018)

BRAND NAME RESULTS

GAP 700

FOREVER 21 575

ZARA 812

H&M 794

AEROPOSTALE 636

Competitors Analysis

From the Competitors analysis we can clearly infer that the brand Forever 21 has been given the
lowest rank by the consumers despite being placed under the Umbrella of Aditya Birla Group,
having positive brand awareness amongst consumers, Forever 21 has invested huge resources in
building larger and much wider store presence as compare to GAP or Aeropostale , Even then it
has the lowest ranking which means there is something behind and the reasons for the same need
further study with respect to competitors.

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From the below data analysis we could see that the mode is 1, where 1 is allotted to the category
of people visiting the brand once in a year.

Frequency of Visit

Although the fast fashion brands have a inventory turnover and there are customers who want to
see the clothing styles of latest trends and those people would come more frequently to visit such
fast fashion brands, But people mostly visited forever 21 only once in a year , that is the largest
chunk of people walking in is very less in relevance of fast fashion brand. Which since the visit
are so less there is a decrease in footfall for the store which could be one of the reasons for its
sales decline.

Preferred Shopping Platform

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From the consumer analysis , we could also see that the larger chunk of people still prefer to buy
product in store, which is offline mode of retailing that is 37.3 % along with people buying from
store coming under both category, we can clearly see that even after digital presence coming into
the picture there are a lot of people who still prefer to buy clothes from the store itself, maybe
due to the Ambience , touch and feel of products, to see the trial and fit before buying, or maybe
they are influenced to visit the store due to its window display and mannequin styling since these
two parameters were rated highest by the consumers of forever 21.

Also there are chances that people prefer to buy less from online platforms because the Swot
Analysis of the brand brings to the notice that there are Online Hindrances faced by customers
while ordering products online.

The brand possesses a few weaknesses and those weaknesses could be worked upon, from
doing the swot analysis of the brand it was seen that one of the major reasons for weakness of
the brand is their copied designs and lack of originality in their products. (Business Insider,
2018)

According to our consumer survey , customers had put in their perspectives towards the brand
through an open ended question and from there we can infer the consumers perceptions
towards the brand which could either be positive or negative . Through their survey we could
clearly infer that the brand should have trends according to the Indian market perceptions.
They follow trends as per foreign market which is why they don‘t have plus size clothing and
there were a lot of customers who asked for clothes of bigger sizes, but were left disappointed
because they could not get clothes according to their choices, as clothes are very much
according to petite body which might not go in the Indian Market. Also the variety and quality
provided by the brand is pretty bad and the customers they got better quality products at its
competitive brands like Zara & H&M.

Chapter 6 - Conclusion
The first phase of the project is to know about whether the brand we have selected is a declining
brand in India. We chose the brand Forever 21 and through our research and analyzing the
articles and other various resources we got to know that this particular brand is declining in
India.

After finding that the brand is declining, a rationale was prepared which comprise of the reasons
because of which the brand was declining.

The second phase comprise of the research objectives framed and methodology to work upon.

96
The third phase comprise of the environmental analysis and marketing analysis of the Forever
21. Environmental analysis tools give an in-depth view to the company regarding the
environment they are in and about the products or services with which they plan to enter the
marketplace. PESTLE factors are useful in evaluating the external environment (macro
environment) of the organization. Competitor Analysis is useful in comparing the brand with its
competitors to analyses the competitor‘s activities which allow them to attract more consumers
towards them. SWOT analysis is useful in identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities
and threats related to the brand. PLC is useful to analyses on which stage the brand is standing.
Porters five forces model will enable us to identify the bargaining power of suppliers and
consumers and threats related to new entry and substitutes. STP enables us to identify the
segmentation and targeting the market it is catering to and positioning of Forever 21 in the mind
of the consumers. DILO enabled us to identify the daily life activities of the consumer of Forever
21. With the help of these tools, companies can do a detailed analysis for creating strategic plans.
The report explains the retail mix elements which are associated with the Forever 21. Such as
type of merchandise and services offered by the retailer. Also, it discusses different elements of
visual merchandising which include merchandise presentation, window display, in-store display
and exterior of the store. It talks about the currents trends and buying season as well. Garment
detailing is also explained.

According to our survey, very few people prefer Forever 21 and due to this the footfall is
declining leading to decreased sales. The quality possessed by the brand is high whereas
trendiness associated with it is less since the brand is targeting age group of 18-25 which are
more trend conscious than quality. Brand needs to focus on the colors of the clothes provided by
them. The product display is not appealing due to which consumers find it difficult to access the
clothes which might lead to dissatisfaction among the consumers.

Chapter 7 – Recommendations
Use of technology for improving customer experiences

 Through the technical analysis of the brand the brand uses good and latest technology
from the Artificial Intelligence has been proved out to be very beneficial for the
brand,(Chain Store Age, 2018) therefore the brand should invest in research and
development to incorporate more technology into their processes and the use of AI in
order to boost their sales in the other categories of products as well.
 The brand has a major drawback in terms of technology in Indian market, they don‘t
use such features in India since they have not yet entered the mobile application
market in India, when the time of digital presence is so high and we see that people
prefer to buy its products via online mode. Inculcating the use of AI in bring their

97
 mobile application could help the brand give better shopping experiences to the
customer.

Personalization and Customization Practices

 We would suggest that the brand in order to get over its image of copying designs and
losing its originality, brand should either hire new designers or the brand could co
create their products using the insights and reviews from customers only. Or they
could go in for personalization and customization practices using AI is a feature.
 Since customers no more want to buy clothes seeing what others are wearing they want
exclusivity.
 By using AI the brand could act as fashion stylists, suggesting the fashionistas what to
wear and critiquing their fashion style. Ecommerce sites like From Myntra and
international brands like Levi‘s and GAP, they are promising the use of artificial
intelligence to style people.( Deoras, 2018)
 Myntra is going in for custom-made experiences by using customer data to curate lines
based on current fashion trends and make a one-of-a kind personalized experience.
(Deoras, 2018)
 Forever 21 could use in the feature of augmented reality, to help its customer stay up to
date with the latest fashion trends. And this feature would use the camera on the
customers mobile to analyse their fashion choices. It would critique on what a customer
is wearing and then provide rating to the fashion-savvy crowd who wants to look
fashionable.
 For example, Zara had done this in the past when a customer asked for a pink scarf in
the store of Toronto and it was not available with them, Similarly there were many
more customers who made a similar demand in Frankfurt and San Francisco, but since
the brand had no product as such the customers left. But within a weeks time there
about more than 2000 stores selling a pink coloured scarf, there were 500000 scarves
which were sold out in 3 days. (Martin Roll, 2018)
 Therefore the customers insight are nowadays very critical for businesses , the better the
companies know their customer the better they can innovate the products and compete in
the industry. (Martin Roll, 2018)

Referral Marketing Strategies

 Also we had seen from our consumer survey that mostly people get to know about the
brand through Social Media Platforms or Friends and Relatives, which means that the
brand could go in providing referral codes to its target audiences to increase their
promotion activities the brand could enhance its social media campaigns by using

98
 influencers on social media platforms they could be inviting them for challenge may
be all this could increase the engagement on social media platforms further.
 The customers could be rewarded by giving them certain incentives every time they
invite their friends to purchase from the brand.

 Rewards could be given through a loyalty program, With a loyalty program the customers
could be engaged by awarding points for any activity performed on your site. One of the
most popular loyalty programs in e-Commerce is the one that Nordstrom has.(Inside
Viral Loops, 2018)

Loyalty Program Of Nordstrom Source : .(Inside Viral Loops, 2018)

Quality Of Apparels Should Be Improved

 In order to deal with subpar quality of its products in comparison to competitors it

should probably look for suppliers upgradation so that they provide better quality of
products, apart from that they should increase quality check standards by inculcating
tools like SIX SIGMA(Define, Measure, Analyse, improve and Control) or Kaizen.
 By using such measures the brand can ensure that their quality levels are maintained
throughout their processes and defects are reduced to minimalistic values.

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