Marketing plan good - Welding and Fabrication Techniques Ontario College Certificate program provides PDF

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Welding and Fabrication Techniques Ontario College Certificate program provides foundational skills to gain entry-level employment in the welding industry.

Participate in a combination of theory and shop work, and learn metal fabrication techniques and welding, acquiring a solid founda...

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Company Profile Name: Start date: Form of business: Address: Phone number Website

NIMclothing March 1st 2012 Sole proprietorship 1701 Kilborn avenue 613-793-8081 NIMclothing.com

Mission statement: Our goal is to provide our customers with fashionable, quality clothing, using recycled materials. For as low as a cost as possible as to ensure our customers are out there saving there money to do the things that they love, while staying stylish at the same time. Also providing a channel Via our website for our customers and fans to be involved in the company and submit possible designs. Vision statement: Within the next 2 years NIMclothing will be the premier clothing company in Ottawa. Sponsoring several local music shows a year, and as well sponsoring entertainers. Many of which being big name entertainers. Unique selling proposition: Our unique selling proposition is allowing our customers the ability to submit their own unique artwork that we would potentially put on a tee shirt, so it would make our customers inclined to support the brand and hopefully get their friends to buy their tee shirts that would also get the word out. Major customer groups and current/future trends that are affecting these customers.  Primary – Male, age: 14-24, income: 0 (parents income) – 50,000, occupation: student - non-professional - music, ethnicity: all, city dwellers, alternative lifestyle.  Secondary – Female, age: 16-25, income 0 – 50,000, occupation: student – non-professional – music, ethnicity: all, city dwellers, alternative lifestyle.  Tertiary – Male, age 25-33, income: 30,000 – 50,000, occupation: nonprofessional – music, ethnicity: all, lifestyle: urban/alternative. Is the product a part of a trend? Three trends that affect our business. NIM clothing offers tangible products. At first, we plan only to focus on apparel such as t-shirts. But like any clothing retail, there are trends that can affect the industry. Following suite to NIM’s business objective, our products will be made with recycled materials and the initial design reflects on an older culture; the 80’s style. Once those designs have been released for market, we expect customers to submit their own prototypes designs that they wish to see on future products.

Those three factors are also three current trends involved in the clothing industry. 1. Recycled clothing has started to gain momentum ever since a NPO called EarthPledge teamed up with top clothing retailer Barneys (in 2005) to organize an all “green” fashion show, called FutureFashion. Clothing brands and manufacturers were able to demonstrate their line of “eco-fashion” clothes. Another top designer to popularize the eco-fashion was Richie Rich. Seeing the event being a success, this team moved to the west coast and organized “Catwalk on the Wild Side”. Again, this event was to boost the up and coming eco-fashion trend. A pioneer in this growing trend, Linda Loudermilk, added in to this event. Seeing NPO’s and high end designers joining together to boost the eco-fashion trend is a sure sign proving mixing “green” with clothing is going to work. 2. The initial design for NIM, being the 80’s style, seems to have stumble upon another growing trend. After reading over many forums and online question sites, people and some clothing brands have noticed that the 80’s style clothing is starting to boom. The following was a question asked on yahoo answers. a. What are some old fashion trends do you want to bring back? i . This was the top answer: “Definitely the 70s-80s rocker styles. Back then, nobody dressed like that constantly obsessed about what they had to wear--they just threw something on, and it worked”. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index? qid=20081029115323AApyjP5 Another source to support the idea of the 80’s clothing coming back in trend would be from a column written by Jamie D. in “Sexy 80’s fashion on its way back”. Her article covers how today’s fashion is very repetitive with top clothing brands such as Aeropostale and Abercombie & Fitch. http://missjamied.hubpages.com/hub/80s-fashion-is-on-its-way-back There are many more opinions about the styles and trends on this one but it goes to show that NIM clothing is taking a step in a good direction with the reintroduction to earlier clothing generations. 3. Customization. This has been an ongoing trend ever since we started our SME program back in autumn 2010. Customers absolutely love the fact they can choose what they want and how they want it. This doesn’t seem to change when it involves clothing. However, not many companies are trying this. From researching, we’ve only found very few brands or stores offering this unique take on clothing. One site, Styleshake.com, lets the customers (aimed at a female market) to customize their dresses any way they want. Reading the article “How about wearing your self-designed clothes?” (http://twothousandthings.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-about-wearing-yourself-designed.html) the author describes her pleasant experience using the services from Styleshake.com. This finding can support the fact that customers do want to see their own styles for clothing. This is why NIM has taken a focus on this up and coming trend.

Number of competitors in the industry  There are a huge number of competitors in the industry, however; we are not only targeting a lifestyle like the other brands, we are hacking into an urban/hip-hop Ottawa culture. The only one in our very small industry.  There are some that indirectly tie in with us in Ottawa, they are: o Nrml o Fall down art gallery o Top of the world o Hot press boutique Three competitors: Du rails the escape movement Fall down Art gallery SWOT of The escape movement Strengths  Newer company  Able to evaluate their market place without any real need to hurry it along because there is no direct competition.  There location is extremely prime, they sell to the youth of the North Bay market.  Try to get involved in north bay culture  Young fashion has held up during the economic downturn. Opportunities  Opportunity to control the local tshirt market in North Bay.  Grasp new trends and run with them.  Sell to local retailers.  Everyone is looking for something new all the time.

Weaknesses  Being newer  Having to start from the ground up and build a reputation.  Expensive start up costs without guaranteed sales.  On a larger scale so much competition.  Lack of experience.

Threats  Low threats  Loosing money, gaining experience  Bigger retailer shutting them down by lowering their prices.  Poor economy could result in people not supporting local goods.

Clothing & Footwear Trends

May 2011 Adam Goodman: Vertical Insight Manager

Advertising: As far as this aspect goes, we want to reflect our overall company objective and keep costs low so we may offer low prices to our customers. But at the same time, we want to effectively take our competitor’s traffic away and convert them to our clothing brand. A good idea would be to use some guerilla marketing tactics. To start, we would want to get a few prototype shirts ready and get some people within our circle that would be willing to sport the shirts. With that done, we would send them to strategic areas where high volume mixes with most of our competitors. Malls are the key points. Many of our competitors operate from stores within the malls and depending on the time and day, there can be a high volume of people of our market. All big malls such as Bay shore, Rideau, St-Laurent and Place d’Orleans are where we would start. Another strategic area to “advertise” the shirts can be in the Byward market and its surroundings. Weeknights and weekends would be the best time because that’s when our target audience is going to show up. Lastly, university and college campuses are another option. As they may not be the largest demographic areas, they are highly populated with the market we’re seeking after. To summarize, we are using our competition’s market data to determine which type of audience we are after and where they can be found. 3.10: Online Strategies A lot of stores are now merging with an online presence because in this day and age, consumers are realizing how simple and time saving this can be. In order to follow with this, we are going to start up with both a physical location and e-store. First step would be reserve a domain name that has capabilities for an e-mailing, payment and forum systems. Also, we want to have some security features such as a SLL certificate in order to protect our site from malicious threats. Go Daddy offers all this and is quite inexpensive because they are a renowned provider for this type of service. Once the registration is set up, we need to contract a graphic designer to make our website the way we vision it to be. Luckily as Algonquin College students, we have the means to contract students over in the Graphic Design program. Once NIM’s website is launched, we will need to attract traffic our way. During the econstruction phase, we will pour our efforts into social media using free services such as Facebook, Twitter and possibly YouTube or Reddit. We can use all this to build hype by posting feeds, pictures and maybe even videos with the prototype designs. Another powerful feature using social media is the connections we already have. We can send notifications to everyone we know; be it close friends to acquaintances from family members close and far. Once the first attempts to gain notice has been sent, we will then create NIM’s page on Facebook, @NIMclothing on Twitter and NIM’s profile on YouTube. After the website is created, notifications can be sent to direct the growing attention to our website for more information and finally the possibility to purchase.

Public Relations A PR campaign will be launched after NIM’s website is up and running. Before hand, we can only use social media to directly communicate with our future clientele. Again, sticking to being online really the only way we see this working for us. Using physical resources such as mail outs is not only a waste of time; people tend to throw them out. When the website is up and running the way we envision it, we can really use the Internet’s power to create an “e-circle”. We can fully integrate social networks along with blogging sites to our website and its e-mailing system. As the diagram shows, we can really weave together the many resources together to create a strong PR campaign between NIM and our customers.

NIM.com

3.12: Sales Strategy

The supply chain: NIM will be dealing with the end-user so we are a business that will be known as a Business to Consumer (B-2-C). For normal operations, we will use

Raw Materials

Manufacturer

Distributor

Retailer

End User

the traditional supply chain which goes as the following. We see ourselves being the retailer because we are going to be dealing directly with our customers. Upon start-up, we plan to be an Ottawa local designer/retailer and this is why the distributor is placed before us. We will get the buyers to come to us. On a long-term assessment, we are planning to branch out our clothing to regular stores like Boathouse. We would keep our physical location but it would be nice to see

Raw Materials

Manufacturer

Distributor

Wholesaler

Retailer

End User

the brand alongside our competition. The supply chain would then have another factor added to it. E-commerce: For a digital commerce presence, the supply chain is quite similar. However, we would be always dealing with the end-user. With the e-commerce front, we would use an external distribution method like Fedex or UPS. Particular need in the industry: There is a current need in the Ottawa clothing industry, as no one has yet stepped up and said that they were the clothing company of Ottawa, that is what we are hoping to do, by becoming a known name in high schools, colleges, and universities. This is the need, people need to become included in an Ottawa brand and as of right now there is not one definitive one.

Demand for product:

People will always need clothes so the market is always there, we are just offering something that no one else has yet in the market, the ability to be involved in the company into the point of actually helping us to design and pick our tee shirts for us. So I would say that the market for customization is always growing and getting bigger. This customization is just for people who are actually interested in having people see their artwork everywhere. Keys to success in this industry:  Beo r i g i n a l  Br i n gOt t a waCu l t u r ei n t oc l o t hi n g  Ke e pc u s t o me r sh a p p y  Tr yt oc o nn e c twi t ht h ec u s t ome r sa ndt r yt ol e a r nwh a tt h e ywo u l dl i k e .  Ke e pf o c u s e d , a ndd o n ’ tl o o s ei ma g e .  Barriers to entry in this industry: In the clothing industry you have to be original, and make a name for yourself quickly, build your image around that name, and build it fast, because there is always going to be someone or some company riding on your coattails that are trying to do exactly what you do.

Business opportunities: 

Social Change - The green movement is huge right now, also everyone is looking for the next big thing in fashion. Recently fashion has been working backwards with the re-introduction of snap back hats, varsity jackets, and bomber jackets. We see a trend with moving backwards in fashion. We are going to try to grasp the 80s hip hop genre and run with it as far as we can.



Economic Change - Retail sales in 2011 are down from 2010 according to RBC economic trends. North America is currently in a recession, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t introduce our brand. People are still going to buy cloths no matter what. So that’s why we have to make ours better and more affordable than the competition.



Demographics – In Ottawa, the lifestyles here are very diverse. There is a lot to choose from. We can tailor and tweak our brand to suit different lifestyles ex. Outdoor recreation, watersports, music, sports, snow sports, etc.



Political change - Everything is currently going eco-friendly for the good of the planet. Every political candidate is worried about it today. We are jumping on that trend and making our clothing out of recycled materials.

Growth of the Industry:

In order to determine how big the clothing industry in Canada is, we must employ secondary research. A good source for this kind of data is from the Retail Council of Canada website. A lot of the information is fairly up-to-date and provides both annual and quarterly sales. Past sales go as far back as 2006 and we will use up till 2010. The numbers presented reflect Canada’s clothing retail industry. 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 $17,491,000.00 $18,511,000.00 $18,638,000.00 $18,050,000.00 $19,316,000.00 Present sales are pulled from the quarters two and three of 2011. Also included will be the growth percentage from the year before. The RCC couldn’t combine men and women clothing for this so the table will have both. Growth % Growth % from the nd rd 2 Quarter (2011) 3 Quarter (2011) from the year year before before Men’s Clothing $1,975,200.00 3.5% $1,944,500.00 1.9% Women’s 1.9% $3,812,400.00 $3,816,000.00 1.4% Clothing Sales are generally good. There are signs of growth in both quarters, despite them being minimal. Men clothing did drop between quarters but no signs of decrease which is a good thing. Women’s clothing stayed pretty much par. 3.1.1: Size of the Industry Men’s Retail NAICS: 448110 Total Retailers: 773 Women’s Retail NAICS: 448120 Total Retailers: 2,130 Year: 2008 Total: 2,903 Retail Council of Canada number of retailers for 2010 is 215,873. By taking the overall total for both men and women’s clothing retailers (2,903) divided by the total number of retailers in Canada (215,873), we can determine the percentage this industry has in Canada. 2,903 / 215,873 = 1.34% All data is pulled from the SME Benchmarking tool off Industry Canada. The following has the information for both years available; 2006 and 2008. Also, since the NAICS cannot combine both men and women clothing retail, they will be rendered into two segments. Another addition will be the five calculations to determine whether the industry is a viable one or not. 1. Net Profit Margin (NPM): Net Profit / Total Revenue 2. Asset Turnover (AT): Total Revenue / Total Assets 3. Financial Leverage (FL): Total Assets / Net Worth 4. Return on Assets (RoA): Net Profit / Total Assets 5. Return on Net Worth (RNW): Net Profit / Net Worth To ensure Retail Optimal Profitability :

Net Profit Margin (NPM) Asset Turnover (AT) Financial Leverage (FL) Return on Assets (ROA) Return on Net Worth (RNW)

Men Clothing Retail 448110 NPM AT FL RoA RNW

Men Clothing Retail 448110 NPM AT FL RoA

= 2.5 – 3.0 % = 2.5 – 3.0 times = 2 – 3 times = 8 – 10 % = 18 – 25 %

2006 21,000 / 620,800 = 3.38%

Canada Viable? No

620,800 / 382,200 = 1.62 times 382,000 / 134,500 = 2.84 times 21,000 / 382,200 = 5.49%

Perfect

21,000 / 134,500 = 15.61%

No

2006 9,000 / 574,800 = 1.56% 74,800 / 363,800 = 1.619 times 363,800 / 101,700 = 3.577 times 9,000 / 363,800 = 2.47%

No

No

Ontario Viable? No No No No

2008

Viable?

19,200 / 650,200 = 2.95%

Yes

650,200 / 421,500 = 1.5 times 421,500 / 153,600 = 2.74 times 19,200 / 412,500 = 4.55%

Perfect

19,200 / 153,600 = 12.5%

No

2008

Viable?

2,400 / 593,500 = 0,404%

No

593,500 / 366,500 = 1.169 times 366,500 / 83,400 = 4.394 times 2,400 / 366,500 = 0.65%

No

No

No No No

RNW

Women Clothing Retail 448120 NPM AT FL RoA RNW

Women Clothing Retail 448120 NPM

AT FL RoA

9,000 / 101,700 = 8.85%

2006 7,400 / 520,600 = 1.42% 520,600 / 255,100 = 2.04 times 255,100 / 48,200 = 5.29 times 7,400 / 255,100 = 2.9% 7,400 / 48,200 = 15.35%

2006 10,000 / 519,100 = 1.92% 519,100 / 269,900 = 1.92 times 269,900 / 40,200 = 6.714 times 10,000 / 269,900 = 3.71%

No

Canada Viable? No No No Yes No

Ontario Viable? No

No No No

2,400 / 83,400 = 2.877%

No

2008

Viable?

2,100 / 516,000 = 0.4%

No

516,000 / 257,500 = 2 times 257,500 / 37,700 = 6.83 times 2,100 / 257,500 = 0.82%

No No No

2,100 / 37,700 = 5.5%

No

2008

Viable?

2,200 / 509,500 = 0.43%

No

509,500 / 268,600 = 1.897 times 268,600 / 18,700 = 14.36 times 2,200 / 268,600 = 0.819%

No No No

RNW

10,000 / 40,200 = 24,87%

Yes

2,200 / 18,700 = 11.76%

The numbers may not come close to spectacular but it does explain one thing; clothing retailers are numerically forced to sell both men and women’s clothing to even have a chance. Exceptions to this would be the high-end retailers such as Tip Top, Chateau and many more. These types of retailers focus on a higher pricing point. They can remain niched to men and/or women. Brands found within this category would be: Ralph Lauren, Vera Wang, Prada, Chloe and Hugo Boss. From exploring the St-Laurent Mall, clothing retailer Fair-weather is closing up because they were trying to compete with Tip Top and Chateau. Both th...