Houzit is working in homewares market of Brisbane as one of
the competitive homewares stores. The company is currently working in the
Brisbane with its 15 stores, and it has a vision to become a national retail
brand. The company is looking to capture national market by providing high
quality homewares for the home makers, and also provide them easy to manage
payment plans as well. The overall mission of the company is to make a considerable
presence in every capital city of Australia till year 2020. It will grow its
stores from 15 stores in Brisbane area to 100 stores nationwide. So, these are
the actual organizational objectives that company has set to achieve.
SWOT Analysis of The Houzit
It is
important to have a SWOT analysis of the company to develop a proper marketing
plan with a detailed and targeted strategy, which can help them to achieve
their organizational objectives. So, here is review of some of the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats of the Houzit Company. The company has various
strengths like their staff is excellent as they have relevant skills and
knowledge, which is necessary about homewares. They also have great retail
space, which is easy to function and can excel in an urban district area. Moreover,
they have good amount of loyal customers and they offer products to their customers
with high quality, which are not being provided by their competitors. The
company has few weaknesses as well like their marketing budget is very limited
and it is creating a problem for them in developing brand awareness. Moreover,
the company is also struggling to fund those programs, which are relevant with
long term repayments from their customers.
However,
the good thing for Houzit is that their strengths as well as market space is
offering various viable opportunities to them. The homewares market is growing
and there is huge target market, which still does not know about Houzit, so
company can target this great opportunity. Moreover, they have great
opportunity to expand their business outside Brisbane, and they can cover major
cities of Australia for homewares market. But they have to deal with some
threats as well. They have a great threat from local independent retailers, and
at the same time, a tough competition is also thrown by the national chains
working in Brisbane. The economic bad conditions are also affecting the ability
of customers to spend their income on things like homewares.
Marketing Objectives of The Houzit
They
have set certain marketing objectives for the next few years. For instance, the
company is currently having per year sales of $15m, and they want to expand it
to $20m per year in coming three years. They want to increase the list of
loyalty customers from 10000 and take it to the level of 15000. Their other
major marketing objective is to come up with a strategy to spread brand awareness
in the Brisbane that in next 18 months, 1 out of every 3 people should
recognize Houzit brand.
Strategies of The Houzit
There
are two strategies selected for the company after reviewing the opportunities
in the SWOT analysis. The company certainly has to improve their marketing
efforts so that brand gets more awareness and recognition amongst customers. The
first strategy in this regard is to do “market penetration and development”. For
this purpose, the company has to increase its existing market sales, and then
cover new markets nationwide with attracting new customers to get more
penetration. This marketing strategy is not complex and does not have any threats;
as it can only give various benefits to the company. The second marketing strategy
for the company is ‘product development and customer care”. The company has to
develop new products with new features and add more quality in those products. Moreover,
they have to take more care of their customers through better customer
services, and bring their satisfaction from the brand. These strategies are
considerable because these strategies are more appropriate in given
circumstances. The company will not only be able to expand its business
nationwide, but they will also be spread great brand awareness as well. These strategies
are simple to apply in quick successions and may not come up with any complex
issues for the Houzit Company.
Implementation of The Houzit
The
company can implement these strategies by taking various steps on immediate
basis. For instance, to increase sales and loyalty from the existing customers,
they can offer various loyalty programs like discounts or premium facilities to
the existing customers. To penetrate in the market and to get brand awareness,
the company can start sponsoring local events in the Brisbane area so that
customers get to know about Houzit brand in the region. Moreover, the company
can look to market its products across different marketing channels like on
online platform as well as on TV. The promotional activities across all
marketing channels will develop good brand awareness and it will attract more
customers to increase their sales as well as loyal customer base.