Both Asos and Forever 21 companies are based in the United Kingdom and they are both known to be the solution when it comes to best fashion wears. The similarity between the two is that they command a huge market share in clothing or textile sector and they extend their operations to other countries where they distribute their products. Embarking on proper marketing mechanisms, lowering production cost and producing high quality products are mechanisms they are keen to employ to outsmart each other. By Forever 21 opening a major store in China is seen as a big score since the services or goods are brought closer to the people and hence reducing logistic barriers in distributing (Hicken 2015). To win the hearts of many, they have embarked on a major campaign where they involve celebrities who in actual fact prefer their products to influence potential customers. Extensive media and online campaign have greatly attracted more customers who feel Forever 21 is an icon in quality products. From the above approaches, Forever 21 can successfully compete and edge other retailers if they maintain the current mechanisms which have proofed effective by taking their products closer to the people and embark on a major campaign in advertising.
Asos on the other hand has embarked on delivering its products to Sri Lanka with free standard shipping.This has been largely effective as it has led to a sharp increase in number of customers buying their products (Forbes 2014). Asos are among top industries with the best detailed, efficient and comprehensive website services where engagement with customers have been made efficient and easy. Consequently, they have integrated all their services to online platform where interested customers have direct access to details about the products they are interested in. Asos can compete against Forever 21 more if they can maintain their trend in digitalising their operations and employ the idea of taking their products close to people, for example opening stores to Sri Lanka. On the production cost, Forever 21 has labour accounting for a huge share since it has a store in China that requires sourced labour to run.
Asos on the other hand will incur more costs in logistics since they have to deliver or ship their products for free to their customers in Sri Lanka. On competition, Forever 21 can be said to be competing much on product quality and service since it has high quality products and has embarked on taking services and products closer to the people. The high quality products are as aresult of branding and also styles which attracts even top celebrities. On the other hand, Asos can be said to be competing on price since it embarks on minimising the cost of their products hence attracting more customers. This is achieved by making sure the availability of their products is attained and there is no shortage in the market. Their ability to compete is largely influenced by their marketing strategies and plans. Sourcing a Forever 21’s product from China may be convenient and easy due to already established store where interested party have a variety to choose. It also means high quality products may be available in order to influence more customers to purchase their products. On the other hand getting a product from Sri Lanka distributed by Asos, may be time consuming since delivery is not immediate. This differences may be consistent with prices and quality since both companies are keen to maintain their market share and fundamentally to make profits. Both companies would be keen not to hike the prices or to lower the quality of their products which may negatively affect their market share.
Reference
Forbes,(2014);Asos Annual Reports and Accounts -web.
Hicken. M. (2015), Corporate Annual Report of Forever 21 Company, Business Insider.