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The Role of the External Environment in Marketing Decisions.

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Using a membership warehouse club for pricing, distribution, segmentation, targeting, positioning and branding.

How do pricing and distribution complement each other when gowns are available at Costco? What are implications for segmenting, targeting, positioning and branding.

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Solution Summary

The solution discusses the role of the changing external environment in decision-making for marketing-mix strategies. Specifically, the way in which firms must choose alternatives when their target market changes their buying behavior. It is also important, that though consumers are looking for more affordable prices, they are willing to sacrifice quality. The focus here in the bridal industry and whether the dream of a fairy tale wedding can be fulfilled at a membership warehouse club like Costco.

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The Role of the External Environment in Marketing Decisions
How Do Pricing and Distribution Compliment in the Bridal Industry?
Pricing and distribution represent separate strategies, where prices are established on an organization's objectives and positioning in the market, and distribution creates value and is essentially connected to pricing (West, Ford & Ibrahim, 2010). The external environment is constantly changing, causing companies to adapt their marketing-mix strategies, strengthening their marketing position while being sensitive to changing buyer behavior (Hruzova, 2009). This is no less true in an economic downturn.
When the target of a company's market suddenly becomes less inclined to spend money, they look for alternatives in order to save. The bridal industry has not been immune from the economic downturn, and planning for a wedding is a big expense when couples to look for ways to cut expenses. The recent partnership between Los Angeles designer Kirstie Kelly and Costco is an example of how pricing and distribution meet and compliment each other as they adapt their strategies to strengthen their marketing positions (Berk, 2011).
Over the last few years, Costco has been positioning its brand in the bridal industry, offering inexpensive alternatives to couples planning their wedding and honeymoon (Berk, 2011). Now the father of the bride to be may find the expense of a wedding a little easier to swallow as Mom and daughter go to Costco to choose between six different from Kelly's Signature Collection of bridal gowns. Instead of paying a price between $2,000 and $7,000 for a Kelly bridal dress, Dad only has to dole out $699 to $1,399 (Berk, 2011, ¶ 8).
As mentioned before, pricing and distribution are separate strategies, but are essentially connected. The force of changing customer-buying behavior drives both companies to adapt their strategies. In this partnership, Kirstie Kelly and Costco display strategy synchronization. It is ...

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