“A Comparison of Competitors’ Websites” The retail industry such as Men’s Wearhouse, Macy’s, Burlington, and Express operate websites and are part of a highly competitive industry. They contend with local, national, and global online retailers that bring comparable products and offer comparable services. Consumer opportunities in retail are shifting quickly with online retail stores, with an innovative future, which includes speed, convenience, and personalized mobile access. The change to e-commerce is pervasive to traditional retailers that must adjust their growth strategies, or risk a downturn in business.
Whereas retail is ever expanding within e-commerce, retailers do offer different products and rvices in order to promote their e-businesses. Comparing products and services for Men’s Wearhouse, Macy’s Burlington, and Express, gives the consumer information to make better decisions. An example of products from Men’s Wearhouse offers is an extensive range of suits, casual sport coats, blazers, casual jeans, shirts, Big and tall sizes and accessories. Men’s Wearhouse services include custom tailoring, rental tuxedos, designer brands, and low prices.
Their website offers services such as description, attributes, benefit information, images, video, interactive media, audio, graphics and website addresses. Compared to the products that Burlington offers at their outlet stores are coats, women’s dresses, suits, career, casual collections, separates, lingerie, handbags, and accessories, men’s clothing, furnishings, men’s sportswear, active wear, children’s clothing, newborn to pre-teen, shoes, accessories for infants, linens and home decor.
Burlington also offers services committed to giving the consumer detailed information on all products to help the consumer make informed decisions. Burlington services at the local stores and online shopping include product description, attributes, benefit information, images, interactive media, audio, graphics and website addresses. According to Macy’s website, they are committed to customer service by expanding products to offer a variety to targeted customers such as teenagers, young professionals, and high-end clientele.
Their products include clothing for men, women, teenagers, and accessories such as jewelry, beauty products, housewares, and bedding. The service information offered by Macy’s includes product recalls, rebate forms, how to find items in store that are online, size charts available on-line, about damaged order, track a rebate, customer sized rings, warranty information, gift packaging, about size and color, product reviews, weekly catalog, about Levi’s store, how to use image search app. , plus size clothing, petite size clothing, big and tall size clothing, beauty and fragrances.
Their webpage’s offer images, video, interactive media, audio, graphics and website addresses. Express, a subsidiary of Limited Brands opened Express Men stores in the year 2000, with a main-line of products for men such as casual men’s wear, suits, accessories, shoes, and underwear as well as women’s lines that include dresses, suits, casual wear, accessories, shoes, active wear, swimsuits, home and gifts. Express also offers “The Edit X Express,” which is entertainment such as music, what’s trending, life, style, people we love.
Express and shop. Their webpage’s offer images, video, interactive media, audio, graphics and website addresses. Men’s Wearhouse, Macy’s, Burlington, and Express are competitive rivals, yet they offer slightly different products. All of their websites from these companies also offer different services designed to target their specific customer base. Today, retail companies must resolve exactly how and where to target segments of the retail market by aiming at their products or brands.
The needs and wants of targeted consumers have to converted into a solid mix of product, price, promotion and distribution. Men’s Wearhouse growing positions is based on a single segment strategy. By focusing resources on men’s wear with a clear customer base, they have developed a target market towards men in their early twenties to mid-forties, which is quickly growing. Whereas, Burlington outlets target market is the middle-class consumer who is value-conscious, and Macy’s target market is the middle class, Hispanic population, and the millennial.
In contrast to the Express target market, which is young men and women between the ages of 20 to 30 years old. Men’s Wearhouse are known for selling designer suits and active wear to men. All four companies have positioned themselves to create an image in the minds of the targeted customer, however these companies are targeting different segments of the retail market, and their e-commerce websites have different designs, interactivities and promotions targeting their customers.
The advantage that Men’s Wearhouse has over the other companies mentioned earlier is that they are a “specialty store” that caters to one group; men; and that gives them the opportunity to concentrate their market on that particular market segment and to be able to do it well. E-commerce gives a competitive advantage to retail stores by developing database-driven online catalogues. When Men’s Wearhouse, Express, Burlington, and Macy’s established an online present they gave the customer a way to save time and gas money from shopping in local stores.
Their online presence allows them to keep up with the competition and attract new customers. E-commerce also grants these companies savings by using a web based management system. With this system they can automate their inventory and decrease costs by offering online order taking, and bill payment, electronic proposal of goods and services, and customer account inquiries. An online presence also give companies an understanding of their customers’ needs by tracking their buying habits which changes the way people buy, sell and interact with the vendor.
Retail websites have created a new criteria which makes the customer better informed in the decision making and buying process. This encourages the seller to be responsible for informing their customer since the businesses are now consumer oriented. All four websites, Men’s Wearhouse, Express, Burlington, and Macy’s have effective websites. For example, all four companies use hypermedia communication for a customer interaction experience. Case in point, when the cursor browses over a name or images, there is a link to another image, text or video. This activity involves the customer and makes their visit memorable.
Another form of interactivity these companies offer is self generating content such as surveys, forms, and social media that allows the visitor to share information with other customers. Express offers social media, and mobile alerts. Whereas, Burlington offers a baby registry, social media, blog, and Macy’s offers wedding registry, mobile app, social media, sign up for email, and web browsing for visually impaired customer. The company Express, Macy’s and Burlington Coat Factory target both men and women; whereas Men’s Warehouse only targets male customers.
Macys also is shipping orders internationally to over one hundred countries the same as Men’s Wearhouse. Burlington’s marketing lacks international marketing as there is no mentioning of international shipping rates. Burlington’s website appears to target more women shoppers as most of the pictures they have on the main website are of women and children; the fact that mother’s day is approaching makes a difference in their marketing. They know women shoppers buy for their families as well as for themselves.
Like Men’s Wearhouse, Macy’s also has a list to the countries they are currently shipping to. However due the items Macy’s sells, the type of products that can be shipped internationally are restricted to clothes only. None of these four companies offer any type of Kid’s activities on their websites. Additionally, all of these company’s ecommerce websites are limited due to their lack of global outreach, their main market is the US. As a marketing manager | would improve all four companies outreach within the global community by making sure they are willing and able to ship heir products abroad.
Out of all four companies only Macy’s and Men’s Wearhouse delivery internationally. Macy’s offers limited selection on international delivery on large items as sofas, mattresses, etc….. Offering the website in another language such as Spanish will not expand the customer base for Express and Burlington if they are not willing to ship internationally. The company Express does not offer their website in any other language, other than English. Macy’s offers gift cards in Spanish, but does not offer their website in Spanish.
Whereas, Burlington Outlet is the only company out of four retail companies that offers their website in Spanish, but they do not deliver to other countries. When a company is looking to expand their business, a foreign language can reach out globally if they are willing to ship internationally. Another improvement | would make to build up these companies’ customer base would be to expand their neighborhood stores. Macy’s is the only company that has a far-reaching market with their physical stores located in the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, and their shipping is border free.
Whereas, Men’s warehouse is located in the US, United Kingdom, and Canada, the Express are located in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico, and Burlington’s outlet is located in the US, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom. As stated before, having a website in another language is useless if the organization is not willing to ship internationally. All of these companies have an online and local presence as well; that can be experienced and expanded worldwide with the right tools and marketing techniques.