Case Study Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Case Study Report - Essay Example According to the latest figures unemployment is down to 7.4 percent. In 2008, the global financial crisis led UK into the deepest and longest recession ever in their history. But the good news is that the consumer spending is rising because of cheap and easy credit. The GDP of the country which is the main economic growth indicator rose by 0.8 percent in Q3 2013. This shows that the country is slowly recovering (Henry, 2008, p. 217). Social forces The changes in social and cultural factors have a profound effect on the fashion industry. The shopping habits in UK are beginning to evolve because of the rapid ageing population and migration trends which are changing the ethnic makeup of the towns and cities. According to KPMG, over the next ten years, around two-thirds of all the retail spending growth in UK will come from people who are aged 55 or above. The main challenge to the Fashion retailers in UK is to come to terms with the ageing population of UK and change their product portf olio according to their specific demands and tastes. Technical forces The fashion retailers are now developing online business models which complement the traditional form of retailing like the brick and mortar retailing. The fashion retailers are also making their presence across social networking sites where they can interact with their customers. Legal Forces The UK retail business has to comply with a number of regulations like Minimum wage legislation. This requires the UK employers to pay a minimum of ?6.19 on hourly basis to the employees aged above 21. They have to incorporate equal opportunities legislation and other parliament acts so that they can ensure equality both in the recruitment and selection and in the work place. Key trends potential trends Over the past 20 years the fashion retail industry has become one of the world’s most fiercely competitive industries in retail sector. There have been major structural changes in the way a fashion retailer do business . In the early 1990s there were a few big retail fashion players like Next, Littlewoods, and Spencer’s. Now the market is more crowded with players like Arcadia, Primark, Inditex and Forever 21 fighting to own larger market share. The major change has been the rise of internet. Majority of the fashion retailers are now going online to make their business global. The fashion retailers have created new standards for themselves. According to a study in the next five years, 40 percent of all the high street stores are up for renewal. Stores are getting more exciting for the customer to visit. Another important change is that the customers now get more value for their price. Both the cost prices and the selling prices have now fallen and the customers can now get superb quality of material at much lower price as compared to 20 years ago (Sadler, 2003, p. 164). Environmental forces The physical environment in which fashion retail industry operates in UK is relatively benign as comp ared to other areas in the world which suffers from natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes and forest fires. But the customers are becoming more aware of the impact business has on their