Exploring and mapping new channel and assortment potential with the objective to increase the availability and awareness in the sports bra market

Introduction - Van de Velde, founded in 1919, is a company specialized in lingerie and located in Schellebelle. Their brand portfolio contains Marie Jo, PrimaDonna and Andres Sarda. Thanks to the complementarity of these brands, Van de Velde is able to serve every kind of woman in the segment of luxury lingerie. Just like lingerie, the confidence of a woman can be stimulated by a solid workout. Therefore, Van de Velde introduced PrimaDonna Sports, which is a collection of trendy sports bras and matching sportswear. This collection stands for fashion, comfort and quality. Nevertheless the belief of Van de Velde in this new collection, the results were a little disappointing due to several issues. The main issues were threefold. Firstly, the sports collection is only sold in a limited amount of stores. Therefore, the challenge was to optimize the current sales channels of the PrimaDonna sports bra as well as to search for new channels. Secondly, the awareness of this sports bra is very low. Recommendations are given to improve this. Also, to assure future growth of the sports bra, possible suggestions for the assortment potential are given. The challenge concerns four different markets, namely Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. The research question, based on the problem statement, is formulated as follows: “How to increase the availability and awareness of the PrimaDonna sports bra and optimize the assortment potential of it in four countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom?“ Methodology - Beforehand, a literature study was conducted based on not only internal data of Van de Velde, but also external data in order to get a complete overview of Van de Velde and the sports bra market. To answer the research question, four research methods were used. First, primary qualitative research was executed to get insights into the market, the competition and the fit with the sports bra of PrimaDonna. This was done by organizing a field study in the four countries of our scope. Second, buyers from four stores were interviewed. Third, two focus groups were organized with at least six women per group. These different components of the qualitative research helped to get an overview of the a sports bra market. Besides the three described qualitative research components, primary quantitative research was used to translate our qualitative insights into quantitative results. This quantitative research consisted of a survey to go more in-depth into the channels used by (non-)consumers. This survey was send to the four countries and permitted us to get an idea of which kind of women purchase in which type of channel. Results and recommendations - Out of this research some interesting findings were analyzed and reformed into different recommendations to solve awareness as well as availability issues for the four countries. Firstly, when looking at the availability of PrimaDonna Sports, a difference needs to be made between the four countries, since each country has different habits and desires. Yet, there are some general conclusions for all countries together. These consist of specializing in sports bras only in order to assure a high level of quality and to create economies of scale, so that the price can be lowered. Based on the different analyses and the price level of the main competitors, this is required in order to be and stay competitive. Besides this, it needs to be emphasized that there are a lot of non-consumers who can be found in a lower premium and service level, which might not be aligned with the expectations of Van de Velde. When looking at the availability of the sports bras, it is recommended that the PrimaDonna sports bra is also sold in a sports/department store and via e-tailers, next to the already known offline lingerie stores, in order to reach all potential consumers. Secondly, to increase the awareness, recommendations were formulated. Infomercials (wherein information and active movements are combined), interesting marketing campaigns and the usage of digital media (e.g. videos of exercises and influencers) are recommended. Lastly, a mobile Lingerie Styling Center is suggested in order to fully make use of the 3D mirror and the service around it. This makes Van de Velde unique compared to their competitors. Via these recommendations and ideas, the intention is to improve the sales of the PrimaDonna sports bra as well as to enhance the image of PrimaDonna in general