The Vancouver billionaire who founded clothing label Lululemon Athletica is raising eyebrows for suggesting that the company’s popular yoga pants aren’t appropriate for “some women’s bodies.”When Chip Wilson was asked about recently-reported problems with pilling in the fabric of the pants, he responded by suggesting the problems are not a quality issue, but more about the way that women are wearing the pants.
However, in order to maintain and grow Lululemon’s business and its popularity, the fact that the body size changes with age should be taken into consideration. As customers age, it is really hard for them to keep slim or “appropriate” size. And as for the company, if it just caters to slim and “appropriate-sized” customers, it tends to bear a great quantity of loss because the elder generation is sharing a large share of market now. In addition, nobody is able to predict how the future will develop, so it is important to enlarge young market and sustain old customers simultaneously because a manager should think of the worst situation that the firm will become unpopular with the young in the future.
As consumers change,only the companies that notice the change and implement different strategies are the ones that are able to keep living in the market.