Retail Marketing

My dream job is to become a retail marketer. In order to prepare for this position, I have been working at Athleta as a sales associate. Athleta offers women's yoga clothing, swimwear, running clothing and athletic clothing for fitness, golf and tennis (Athleta.com). There are 5 key principles to retail marketing. Each of these will be explained in terms of Athleta and their brand.

1. The customer is the most important person in your business (Welfare)
At Athleta, we pride ourselves in customer service. We are each assigned a task to be completed but if at any time a customer walks into the store, you are expected to stop what you're doing and greet the customer. It is important to make them your first priority. You need to ask them if they need help, start a fitting room, and grab extra sizes if they need them. Where would the business be without the customer?

2. Retail is detail (Welfare)
You need to understand detail in order to sell the retail. For Athleta, this means standards. Standards include folding the clothes, hanging the clothes, placement of advertisements, mannequins, and clothing. It is our job as a retail company to make the store pleasant for the customer to shop, thats where the details come into place. For example, at the start of the new year, all of the fitness clothing is moved towards the front of the store since many customers will be looking to put their new years resolution into action.

3. Understand the four P's (Welfare)

• Product: Retailers must chose clothing that is appropriate for the brand and that customers will want to buy in order to make a profit.
• Price: It is important to have a price that meets the budget of your customers. Sales and mark downs are a great way to alter the price and interest the consumer.
• Place: For Athleta, customers are able to purchase our products in a store and online.
• Promotion: The only way you will get customers to purchase the product is if they know about it. It's necessary to promote the brand and the product to customers in order to make a profit and build the brand recognition.

4. Go the extra mile for your customer (Welfare)

Interacting with the customer is a given, meeting the needs of the customer can be challenging but in order to really be successful, you need to wow the customer. Tell them what you can do for them and follow through with it. If they trust you, they'll trust the brand you're selling. That's the key to getting repeat customers. Athleta makes sure they are doing every possible thing they can for a customer, whether that means calling other stores for a product, or finding an item online and having it shipped directly to the customers home.

5. Location, location, location (Welfare)

A business needs to be located in an area that is right for their target customer. The Athleta store I work at is located directly next to Apple. This is a great location for us because we get a lot of traffic. Many customers know where we are located because of our neighbor. It's a great spot to get recognition and keep people coming back.

In order to be successful in retail marketing, it's extremely important to follow these five steps. Athleta has taken these and made them a part of their brand. This has created a successful company.

Sources:
Welfare, Anthony. "The five principles of retail." The Marketing Donut. Marketing 
       Donut, n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2016.

By: Sydney Smith