In a fiercely competitive market of women’s athletic apparel, top brands are at a constant fight for maximum market share. A popular leading brand in this industry is Lululemon, which has managed to turn sportswear and fitness apparel into everyday chic yet comfortable attire. Known mostly for their high quality sports bras and yoga pants for women, Lululemon has overtaken big retail brands like Nike in the women’s active wear market even with their premium pricing strategy in an extremely overcrowded market.
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But other companies haven’t overlooked the scope for immense growth in this market and brands like Nike and Amazon are ready to tackle the fierce competition involved with entering this market. Nike has taken a step towards creating a new line of stylish women’s athletic attire with new innovative modified designs of sports bras, fitness apparel and sneakers specially focused towards women. Nike has taken a decision to allocate more of their investment in women’s athletic fashion wear. This shows Nike’s evolving strategy towards a more aggressive approach against their competitors. Just the news of Nike’s newly generated interested in this market, immediately had a negative impact on Lululemon’s shares by 2.5% since Bloomberg reported this.
Similarly, Amazon.com is also tapping into this women’s sportswear market by teaming with Makalot Industrial Co, who produced clothing for GAP and Kohl’s Corp, to make apparel. Just the scope of expansion in this industry manages to attract new entrants in such a highly competitive market space. Lululemon was adversely hit by this news as well, as shares fell by 4.9% after reports of Amazon’s sportswear.
With an increasing number of competitors, these brands will need to strengthen their strategy against their competition and adopt different marketing techniques to acquire brand loyalty and a greater market share. Their main goal should be to focus on their points of difference and remodel their value proposition canvas to further satisfy their customer’s need and wants.
With these new entrants in the market will customers really be willing to choose Lululemon in spite of their upscale pricing compared to competitors or will they have to adopt a new strategy quickly enough before they get overthrown in this fiercely aggressive market space?
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Citations
- http://www.bnn.ca/amazon-said-to-make-sportswear-push-in-industry-jolting-move-1-1.884248
- http://vancouversun.com/news/retail-marketing/nike-coming-for-lululemon-sharpens-focus-on-womens-wear-1/wcm/d57fe707-2126-4dce-ab33-0f374f12aca4
- http://www.businessinsider.com/nike-launches-new-pants-studio-2017-10
- https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/nike-reportedly-set-to-open-yoga-pant-studios-in-5000-stores.html