Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning in the Uk Footwear Market

People live in the world, where no one lives without at least one pair of shoes. Shoes are a necessity. Shoes nowadays are equally essential as any other garb. Taking into account that every person has different needs, footwear market has to consider a lot of variable options for them. Essay is going to review segmentation, targeting and positioning in UK footwear market, by analysing and explaining the processes of these criterions.

UK footwear market is a massive industry. Every day they are selling vast number of shoes. According to Hilary Monk, after footwear specialists successful year in 2010, the growth in 2011 was slower then expected. Notwithstanding, sales in 2012 has increased again and as ‘’Mintel’’ expects it will continue to rise.

Figure 1: Footwear specialists sales*, 2007-17

6,000

5,500

5,000

(£m)

4,630

Best case (£m)

5,841

Mintel forecast (£m)

5,385

Worst case (£m)

4,930

4,500

4,000

3,500

0

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Est.

Actual Forecast

Confidence intervals

95%

90%

70%

50

* including VAT Source: Mintel

(Mintel reports, Footwear Retailing, 2012).

The variety of footwear is extremely spacious. There are a lot of stores, selling similar or different types of shoes. In order to remain strong in the market, footwear specialists have to do marketing research. How and why do people buy, what has changed in the market and what people want are the main questions in marketing analysis. To make marketing analysis easier, it embodies three factors, such as segmentation, targeting and positioning. Otherwise known as STP.

Segmentation

First of all it is important to understand what is market segmentation. ‘’Market segmentation is the division of a market into different groups of customers with distinctly similar needs and product/service requirements. ‘’ (P. Baines, C. Fill, K. Page, 2008, pg.217) In other...