Preview

Case study: ASOS and Topshop

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1547 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Case study: ASOS and Topshop
Report for supply chains of ASOS and Topshop

Word counts: 1273
11th March 2013
Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction……………………………………3

2.0 Overview and Demographics
2.1 ASOS …………………………………………4
2.2 Topshop ……………………………………4

3.0 Supply Chain
3.1 Supply Chain of ASOS ……………….. 5
3.2 Supply Chain of Topshop ………….. 7

4.0 Conclusion ………………………………………9

5.0 Bibliography …………………………………..10

1.0 Introduction

‘Fashion industry is characterised by short product life cycles, volatile and unpredictable demand, tremendous product variety, long and inflexible supply processes and a complex supply chain.’

(Sen, 2007, pp. 1)

Due to the nature of the fashion industry, the demand in supply chain changes rapidly. Time is a crucial factor for fashion and therefore supply chain management should be sensitive according to the change in demand (Sull et al., 2008). This report is going to compare two supply chains in the fashion industry – ASOS and Topshop. The aim is to evaluate different logistic systems across brands and address related issues.

2.0 Overview and Demographics

2.1 ASOS

The fashion industry has been known as the third largest online market with sales of £1.7 billion in 2006 (Meadows, 2007). ASOS launched its market position in June 2000 and became one of the biggest and fastest growing online fashion retailers in UK (Bland, 2011). Its scale is enormous for an online-based company which owned more than 400 brands and covers 167 countries (ASOS, 2013). It is approximated that over 1300 new product lines are introduced by ASOS every week, which show the importance of supply chain management (Meadows, 2007) Moreover, with an increase in profit by 137% in 2007, it obviously showed that ASOS owned a sound stock managing system.

ASOS
Topshop
Launching Year
2000
1964
Price
Low to High



Bibliography: Ilfeld, J. S. & Winer, R. S. (2002). Generating Website Traffic. Journal of Advertising Research, 42 (5), 59-61. Meadows, D. (2007) ASOS sets the Fashion in Logistics. Supply Chain Standard. Assessed online: http://www.supplychainstandard.com/liChannelID/13/Articles/1143/Asos+sets+the+fashion+in+logistics.html [Last visit: 10/03/2013] Card, J. (2008). Nick Robertson 's business success with ASOS. Growing Business. Assessed online: http://www.growingbusiness.co.uk/asos.html [Last visit: 09/03/2013] Fernie, J ASOS (2013) www.asos.com [Last visit: 09/03/2013] Topshop (2013) www.topshop.com [Last visit: 09/03/2013]

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Supply Map Chain

    • 860 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The supply map and the supply chain management consist of manufacturers, distributors and retailers. The marketing mix determines the product mix and the product mix helps the fashion designer to control the target market. The distributor of the finished garment later determines how the product would distribute throughout the department and discount stores. The target market will help the designer to assess the success of the garment. The selection of the garments plays a volatile role in the supply chain because without the right garment/raw materials the finished product may not result to the vision of the designer. “The fashion industry is characterized by short product life cycles, volatile and unpredictable demand, tremendous product variety, long and inflexible supply processes, and a complex supply chain.” (“The US fashion industry: A supply chain review,” 2008)…

    • 860 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ansoff Matrix - 1

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The two businesses I have chosen for this assignment are Asos and Tesco. I have chosen Asos because they don’t have any stores, they do all their business online, and Tesco have thousands of stores and they use online shopping services to compete with their competitors.…

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Market Responding quickly to emerging trends has been a key success factor for retailers such as Topshop, which has carved out a reputation for its ability to pre-empt the latest catwalk styles at affordable prices and with the shortest possible lead times. The UK market for women’s clothing is forecast to grow by almost 10% between 2003 and 2008 to reach a value of nearly £12.8 billion. Tops will remain the largest sector contributing a value of £2.9 billion by the year 2008, accounting for almost 23% of value sector share (Source: Euromonitor) Achievements…

    • 372 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gap Inc.

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages

    * The retail wearing industry is highly competitive, with buyer power being the strongest force. The painful materials needed for manufacturing are relatively abundant, which limits supplier power and accommodate room for price negotiating. There is low cost of entry, so the industry is flooded with competitors and knock-off substitutes, but it’s the consumer who decides what is fashionable and trendy. The retail clothing industry is driven off customer loyalty, and must instantly adapt to the customers economic needs.…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    References: ASOS (2010) ‘The Online Fashion Store’. Retrieved on 19th February 2010, online at www.asos.com…

    • 5653 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Times

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages

    ASOS: The product lifecycle and online fashion Answer sheet Questions 1. What does ASOS stand for? As seen on screen. 2. What does ASOS sell? Own label and branded and fashion goods. 3. How many packages did ASOS send out to its customers each week? 70000 packages are sent out each week to its online customers. 4. Using the case study, explain how the Product life cycle works. The product lifecycle has a number of stages, research and development, introduction, growth; maturity and decline. With ASOS being an international company, this means that its products can be sold continuously all year round as there are different seasons worldwide. E.g. in the UK it is winter, whereas in Australia it would be summer. Hence products lifecycle will be extended due to the all round selling opportunities for all of its products. Also as it is a warehouse based business, space is not an issue, unlike high street shops and therefore can make stock available to all customers all year round e.g. UGG boots which are considered a winter product but are now worn all year round. Introduction stage from the catwalk, ASOS adopt the new item which is then promoted heavily on its website and to its customers through its emails. Growth ASOS ensures that it has enough stock to meet demand as not to disappoint its customers the promotion is done through newspapers and magazines which creates demand on the ASOS website for the products. Maturity ASOS will remind the customers that the stock is online through its emails and which will usually prompt repeat orders. Saturation at this point sales are gradually falling and ASOS will look at clearing that range of products through price cuts and bargain bins. Decline the product has been replaced by new products, however there may still be a few sales elsewhere in the world where time lags in fashion are evident. 5. How could ASOS use the product life cycle to its advantage? It can maximise its sales all year round and…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    ASOS over ten years has become the market leader in the UK online fashion world with reported turnover of £165 m in 2009. They have developed a very competitive edge in fashion retailing through innovation, various delivery options, excellent communication with its customers, well maintained website and expansion of their trade internationally.…

    • 3709 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Michael S. Jeffries, Abercrombie’s CEO, told stock analysts in May that the four-story New York store, which opened in November, has drawn “a very large percentage of international customers, a very large percentage European,” adding, “We are thrilled with what we are learning about running high-volume stores. It gives us huge confidence for the international potential of this brand.” (Abercrombie & Fitch, 2007)…

    • 2538 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Primark case study

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Primark is a subsidiary company of the ABF (Associated British Foods) Group. The company launched in 1969 in Ireland trading as Penny's. By 2000, there were over 100 Primark stores across Britain and Ireland. By 2012 Primark had 238 branches across the UK, Ireland and Europe.…

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Druce, A. (2013) How to Drive Traffic to your Website with Content Marketing. Octarine Communications (online)…

    • 5393 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Strategic Management Asos

    • 2609 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Success and rapid growth of the company was achieved trough a well- planned corporate strategy, using their resources and capabilities in a way that would profit the company. “Strategic planning is the process by which the firm organizes its resources and actions in relation to an external environment in order to achieve its goals and objectives” (McGee, Thomas & Wilson, 2005, p.9). The report will explore current and future trends in the online fashion industry and analyze where ASOS is at the moment in terms of a market place and what strategy do they need to pursue, in order to achieve more financial stability and profitability in the future.…

    • 2609 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, the appearance of fast fashion has reduced the problem of large inventory. Fast fashion is part of the fashion industry that has developed in Europe. It can satisfy the preferences of the rapidly changing major young women who want to follow fashion trends but at a low cost. The emergence of fast fashion has enabled consumers to purchase high-end fashion content at a fraction of the price. But, the range of fast fashion products is very limited.…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Supply Chain Management

    • 5532 Words
    • 23 Pages

    Supply chain management is a topic that has been widely studied; more so since the 1980’s when companies realized that they needed to create competitive advantage, create value and stay ahead of the competition. In using and utilizing supply chain management not only were companies able to sustain competitive advantage by being responsive to customers’ needs, they also streamlined their processes, and were able to drastically cut cost and increase efficiency in areas such as collaboration using just-in–time systems to deliver products when they are needed instead of holding inventory on hand, and paying the cost of doing so. Although the just-in-time system of inventory management…

    • 5532 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The fashion and retail industry tends to be overly youth focused which is not entirely bad but has the disadvantage of resulting in monotonous trends. However, by closely following generational fashion trends as well as our own customers' purchasing preferences, we design our inventory to meet the broad needs of our clientele. We will solely focus on western yet locally appreciated styles, colors and brands to meet the ever vibrant and young aged ever growing market which has an un satiable taste for fashion.…

    • 2043 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    H&M, Benetton and Zara are all garment retailers. Key stages in their supply chains that I will discuss are product design, manufacturing, distribution and retail. Zara and H&M are so called "fast fashion" providers. Their clothes do not have to be of an exceptional quality as the most important factor is to quickly deliver catwalk design to high street customers at an affordable price (Slack et al., 2007). Benetton clothes are of better quality and higher prices but they are at the same time less fashionable and not as trendy. Despite these differences in the target markets, all three companies operate in a very similar environment and all offer innovative products with a life cycle that is very short. Therefore, they need a responsive supply chain that will respond with flexibility to the uncertainties of the environment in which the three companies operate (Fisher, 1997). These uncertainties can be avoided by decreasing lead times, increasing a chain's flexibility or allowing excessive inventories and lower capacity utilisation Fisher, 1997). The later, though, require great capital and leads to high costs. How do the companies balance these factors? In order to answer this question I will follow the…

    • 2712 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays