A little worried about the global financial slowdown? Not too sure about how to get the best bang for your lingerie or costume business? Well Charmingirl invite a marketing professional John Lin, and is here to help. In the following pages we present a basic guide for lingerie business in 2009, talk to those who have survived recessions before and outline five strategies that marketers and agency professionals can use during a time of crisis.
You'd be forgiven for thinking the world was coming to its final days, an apocalypse even. Everyday we're reminded of how bad things are by news of another round of sackings, another currency crash, another fall of stocks or plummet in consumer confidence, sales and ad budgets. All of this information means that its not a good time for setting up business. Is that the end?
No! the world goes on and consumers and companies will continue to survive. Many great brands have actually been born during the darkest economic times. GE was founded in the 1870s, Disney in 1923-24 and Microsoft emerged in New Mexico in 1975. Even Apple's revolutionary iPod was founded during the American recession of 2001. And in this financial crisis, Charmingirl put its marketing to 15% higher, which is 4% more than the increase of last season.
So what are we getting at here. If you are a lingerie seller, this lesson is for you. Some companies who do lingerie importation can not only ride out the downturn, they can grow and flourish. And the advice from powerbrokers across Asia's marketing and advertising industries, is for brands not to make knee-jerk decisions but to have a plan, be smart, sensible and make calculated decisions with your marketing dollars.
"The key thing is to focus on the consumer, who is looking for value above all else," he says. "By being consumer-centric, not company or product-centric in their marketing, [brands must] hone in on their beliefs, they can't continue to focus on price." (There is an article from Charmingirl which talks about the Price war of lingerie market.)
"It was both the best and worst time," he says. "We were able to do things we couldn't do in good times. People are more receptive to innovation in your lingerie business.[in a recession]."
Market research
Can research save your life (or at least your marketing strategy) in a downturn?
In case you didn't get the memo, the 'launch five things and hope one works' days are over. So how are you going make sure the one lingerie style (for example, leather lingerie)or costume series you want to sell, is a hit and not a miss - and remember each one of those misses is going to be tough to take in the coming climate, not just for you, but also for all of your lingerie business.
"Marketing budgets will be slashed, already they are in places like Australia and the UK, meaning research buyers (marketers and agencies) need to do things in a more cost effective manner," Lin says.
There will, he says, still need to be product launches and therefore campaign launches but because there will be little, if not zero, tolerance for mistakes they will need to be done on a "one shoot one kill type mentality and research is going to hopefully give you that".
"Lingerie retailers still need to order and deliver products to consumers but they need to make sure of which ones are going to work. Instead of having five concepts that might work they will need one concept that will definitely work."
So, this financial crisis is not just a crisis, but also a chance for your lingerie business to getting larger. You will find that this crisis is just a promotion of lingerie market, which need to be in a good environment, and the price need to be fixed by the whole market, not one seller.
Charmingirl exported 200,000 Christmas costumes in this season which is 1/3 marketing from China. All customers benefit a lot for this selling. To help the costume sellers, we supply a lower MOQ(which maybe 15 suits per style, per color, per size) or some discount to help them keep business in a normal level. We also designed a lot of new styles for customers, which is the best shown on innovation.
We are please to cooperate with customers, not just sell to customers.
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