Lululemon has no Marketing Department, no advertising, and no celebrity endorsements, but it ranks second only to Apple and Tiffany in North America in terms of sales efficiency per square meter of a store. What makes Lululemon such a commercial success story in North America? And why does Lululemon cost so much but many people still buy it? Let’s take a look at its troika.
Why does Lululemon Cost so Much: 3 Reasons
Positioning:
First, Lululemon’s consumer group is targeted at the “new middle class”, who are less price-sensitive but more concerned with quality. Lululemon’s ideal customer looks like this: “A 32-year-old single woman named Ocean making $100,000 a year. She’s busy, and she has her own apartment, she is active and stylish and spends an hour and a half exercising every day.”
Second, lululemon’s target product. In the past, the sportswear industry has always been functionally driven, constantly developing new technologies and functions of clothes, but why can’t you wear nice clothes while exercising? Add fashion and design to functionality and you have athleisure, the new market. This style of clothing can be worn for sports or casual wear.
Lululemon is the creator and leader of the “athleisure” trend. But now more and more brands are joining the athleisure movement. A host of disparate brands are competing in this category: sportswear brands Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, fast fashion brands H&M, Gap, Old Navy, Target, Victoria’s Secret. After Kanye West, celebrities are jumping on the bandwagon. Beyonce, Selena Gomez, Heidi Klum, Carrie Underwood, and Jessica Simpson have all launched their own sportswear lines.
In The face of such strong competition, Laurent Potdevin, former CEO of Lululemon, said, “Lululemon is a functional fashion brand, which is The biggest difference from other lifestyle brands.” So they not only pay attention to the functional comfort of sports but also play their own fashion design expertise.
Community culture:
Lululemon has a special community culture, and the way it promotes its brand is mainly through its user community.
At first, Chip Wilson, the founder, relied on the model of cooperating with coaches and sponsoring community yoga classes to create a community and group atmosphere, which accumulated a large number of fans in a short period of time and thus stood out from many sports brands. After that, in each city, they send a team to participate in local yoga-related activities, find and dig out “opinion leaders” in the field of yoga, let them experience the product, and persuade them to act as “community contacts”.
Every Lululemon shop assistant is an “educational babe,” like Starbucks habit of calling a shop assistant a buddy; In the same way that Nike calls store managers coaches and store employees athletes, Lululemon is telling consumers its brand story, those store employees with special names play as story-builders.
Educators will find the most popular yoga or other trainers in the local community to serve as “ambassadors,” who are given free clothes or discounts by Lululemon. Ambassadors are usually including yoga teachers or students who have studied yoga for many years. They can teach yoga in showrooms in their spare time. The showrooms are one of the places where is lululemon sold.
As a result, every time when Lululemon enters a new city or country, it is by building communities first, in the form of Show Room and Ambassador, so that people can get to know the brand and therefore build customer relationships, thereby integrating into the local market.
Life concept:
In addition to making and selling yoga clothes, Lululemon promotes a lifestyle and philosophy
“Lululemon is not just about functionality, we are also about shaping a lifestyle.” This is an active, sunny lifestyle known as a “sweat life.”
The typical Lululemon fanboy will pay $92 for a pair of the brand’s sweatpants. Nike’s sweatpants cost around $60 and Under Armour’s $70. The fact that consumers flocked to the significantly higher prices suggests Lululemon has become more than just a clothing brand, but a lifestyle. Lululemon’s shopping bags, stamped with inspirational messages, are almost ubiquitous on America’s Upper East Side.
In Another city, West Chester, Lululemon yoga seems to have become such a social tool that one woman, who recently moved to the area, said women here all wear Lululemon yoga suits.
Lululemon makes the women who wear it feel beautiful and symmetrical. That’s why Lululemon costs so much but many fans, even if they don’t do yoga, insist on wearing Lululemon, which is not cheap.
