2018 Fashion Scholarship Fund Case Study
PHYSICAL RETAIL IN A DIGITAL WORLD
BACKGROUND:
As many traditional retailers are struggling to attract customers and continue to cut down store count, even more online-only players are opening up physical stores. Although Americans still spend nine out of ten dollars in physical stores, decreasing foot traffic and the speed of changing preferences are making it difficult for brick and mortar stores to compete with the instant gratification of online shopping. To be successful, retailers have to strike the right balance between the digital and physical space and redefine the roles of both channels.
OBJECTIVE:
In this year’s case, you will explore how the weaving together of digital technology with offline shopping can improve the performance of a fashion retailer of your choice. You will complete this objective through either the lens of design, marketing, analytics or supply chain. Keep in mind that this is not just a millennial opportunity. Customers across all generations are smarter and more demanding about their shopping experiences and it is your goal to improve the physical store channel to better meet their needs and wants.
A. DESIGN & PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
One way to make brick and mortar retail more relevant to today’s customers is through curated experiences which help customers escape the overwhelming number of choices available out in the market. Your objective is to design an apparel line that will be displayed at a retailer of your choice. It will be a collection curated around a central theme relevant to the retailer’s target customer.
1. Conduct research on the leading fashion retailers which use curated collections to draw customers into their physical stores. Share a brief comparison of the various retailers you researched.
2. Identify one fashion retailer you believe would benefit from adding a curated collection to their assortment, as well as the target customer you are going to design for. Explain your choice.
3. Explain the story behind your curated collection and why it will work at the retailer of your choice.
4. Create an inspiration board for your new line and describe you design process.
5. Create a materials story (fabric, fiber, alloy etc.) including selection of 3 colors and 3 prints.
6. Illustrate 6-8 looks for your proposed product offering and create front and back sketches for three of the looks.
7. Describe how you would merchandise the collection within the physical store you have selected.
8. How would you communicate the story behind the collection?
B. MERCHANDISING & MARKETING
One way to make brick and mortar retail more relevant to today’s customers is through creating shopping experiences that make coming out to physical stores a fun experience within itself. Your objective is to create an in-store entertainment concept and a marketing plan for the launch at retailer of your choice.
1. Conduct research on the leading fashion retailers which use in-store entertainment to draw customers into their physical stores. Share a brief comparison of the various retailers you researched
2. Identify a retailer you believe would benefit from launching an in-store entertainment concept in their physical locations. Explain your choice and elaborate on the entertainment concept you are planning to launch.
3. Develop a launch plan for your concept. Consider the following:
- What product assortment changes, if any, will the retailer need to make in order to execute your idea?
- How will the digital channel support the in-store execution of your entertainment concept?
4. Develop a marketing campaign to promote your entertainment concept, considering what customer you are trying to attract.
5. Provide a concise six-month financial plan detailing expected sales, receipts, profit margin and inventory.
- Outline all the assumptions you made to project out your financials.
- Please provide on an exhibit of your financials in the appendix.
6. What are your plans to scale up if your entertainment concept is successful? What are you plans to maintain it?
- What are some of the challenges of scaling your idea? How would you tackle them?
- How quickly would you be able to expand while maintaining profitability?
- How often would you update your entrainment concept to ensure customers keep coming back?
C. TECHNOLOGY & ANALYTICS
One way to make brick and mortar retail more relevant to today’s customer is to understand why customers are choosing to shop in physical locations and better catering to their preferences. Your objective is to develop a process that will allow a retailer of your choice to identify its customers’ shopping trip patterns and predict the most effective ways to fulfill their needs.
1. Conduct research on the market player you believe is currently best in class in terms of using data to solve for customers’ frustrations with shopping in physical stores. Share a brief comparison of the various retailers you researched
2. Identify a retailer you believe would benefit from better identifying its customers’ shopping trip patterns. Explain your choice.
3. Develop a set of instructions that will act as an algorithm model for predicting the objective of your customers’ in-store shopping trip.
- Identify five to ten specific inputs you would use to build your model. Data available for your analysis will include all data that the retailer of your choice can conceivably collect about their customers, including both shopping behaviors and demographics.
- Identify how you would collect this data and organize the learnings in a way that would allow you to use it in your algorithm.
- Identify five to ten specific ways you would classify your customers’ shopping trip pattern based the data you collected about them (i.e. why did they come in to the store today?)
4. How would you use your algorithm to maximize profit and sales?
- Consider and detail any in-store interactions you would want to trigger for every output of your algorithm. (For example: if you know a customer only comes into your store onve every six weeks to buy perfume, what would you do with that information to drive sales, profit and floor traffic)
- Consider and detail any online interactions you would want to trigger with the customer in order to further supplement their shopping experience and maximize profit and sales.
5. Identify how you would measure the effectiveness of your algorithm and any validate the assumptions you made about the objective, your inputs and your results.
D. SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
One way to make brick and mortar retail more relevant to today’s customer is to better integrate the digital and physical store supply chains to maximize speed and convenience regardless of how the customer is shopping. Your objective is to identify a way to improve the supply chain model of a retailer of your choice in order to overcome whatever impediment is preventing this retailer’s omnichannel success.
1. Conduct research on retailers you believe are currently best in class in terms of providing a fully integrated omnichannel experience to its customers. Share a brief comparison of the various retailers you researched.
2. Identify a retailer you believe would benefit from improving its supply chain in order to better serve the omnichannel customer. Explain your choice.
3. Elaborate on what problems you are solving for and what improvements you would make to their current operations in order to overcome it.
4. Conduct a detailed cost & benefit analysis of your suggested strategy. Please provide on an exhibit in the appendix.
5. Conduct an analysis of your suggested strategy. to identify the potential risks associated with the implementation. Consider what effects a supply chain disruption would have on the retailers’ various stakeholders.
- What steps would you take to mitigate these dangers?
- Are there any specific ethics considerations you would need to address when implementing your strategy?
- Are there any alternative approaches that would accomplish the same goal as your strategy, and why the one you chose the best?
JUDGING CRITERIA:
You will be judged on the depth and relevance of your research (30% of score), the creativity and feasibility of your ideas (50% of score) and the clarity with which you portray both (15% of score). Following format directions will account for the remaining 5% of your score. Your case will be judged by industry professionals including the YMA FSF Board of Governors, YMA FSF Mentors, and YMA FSF Alumni. They will be using the following criteria to score your case:
RESEARCH (30%)
· Has the scholar completed exhaustive research on best-in-class market players and their retailer of choice in order to successfully fulfill the objective at hand?
· Has the scholar acknowledged any instances in which their idea (or something close to) has been executed in the past, and whether it was successful?
· Does the scholar display strong business acumen and common sense?
CREATIVITY & FEASIBILITY (50%)
· Is the scholar’s idea unique, inspiring and innovative?
· Is the scholar’s idea well-thought-out and conceivably executable?
CLARITY (15%)
· Has the scholar clearly completed each portion of their prompt?
· Does the scholar’s case follow logical development and a clear structure; is it easy to follow and summarize?
FORMAT (5%)
· Has the scholar followed all formatting directions, 1" margins on all 4 sides, double spaces, size 12pt Times Roman font?
· Has the scholar used correct grammar and spelling?
· Has the scholar included a title page with one sentence to summarize the case?
· Was the student's name and school was kept anonymous?
FORMAT DIRECTIONS:
All case studies are to be done in an 8 ½“ by 11“ (portrait style only) APA format, with no exceptions.
All case studies must be no longer than 10 pages: This does not include appendix, bibliography and footnotes, which should take up no more than 5 additional pages.
Make sure to include a title page, with one sentence to summarize your case.
DO NOT include your school or name on the title page as case studies are evaluated anonymously.
Make sure your proofread your case study.
Points will be taken off for not following format directions, as well as for grammar and spelling errors.