Exploratory Study on the Success Factors of SPA Brands from Marketing Perspectives - Based on Grounded Theory -

Abstract

The fashion industry has been rearranged by Global SPA brands (like ZARA and H&M), which are powerful retailers that integrate the value chain ranging from manufacturing to sales. SPA brands can offer good quality of clothing at a reasonable price by cutting the margin between the supply chain. They are also called fast fashions since they make expedited efforts to respond to market trends and consumers. Despite the slow growth of the fashion industry in Korea, as global SPA brands rapidly expand market share, traditional fashion companies have launched several SPA brands such as MIXXO and SPAO (E-LAND), 8SECONDS (CHEIL INDUSTRIES). The few academic studies on this subject are focused on the analysis of secondary data such as news and books. The current research is qualitative and empirical attempts to explore the success factor of SPA brands with analysis of 1:1 in-depth interviews with experts who have worked for global SPAs such as Uniqlo, H&M, and ZARA, based on the grounded theory. The main phenomenon was shown to be that global SPA brands were popular since they offer a variety of products with a large assortment at reasonable and cheap prices in a large scale and multifunctional retail store. Most of them displayed main phenomena that can be realized due to the purchasing cycle of clothing that is shorter with consumers` regarding clothing as consumables. Global SPA brands had three types of marketing strategy: sellable product, sales strategy according to consumer response, and multifunctional stores. Each global SPA brand developed marketing strategies based on core competency and national conditions. The three success factors shorten the consumer decision making process of clothing. This study concludes with implications for practitioners of SPA brands born in Korea.