Business Analysis: Lululemon Athletica Inc.

Introduction

Lululemon Athletica Inc. is one of the fastest growing retailers and designers of athletic apparel that serves primarily in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Singapore. Lululemon is a Canadian based company whose head office is located in Vancouver, British Columbia. This company once had a goal of opening only one store but has now grown into an international yoga inspired athletic apparel company. Lululemon not only offers its customers a wide range of performance apparel but also a variety of fitness related accessories such as socks, underwear, bags, water bottles and yoga mats. Their kids brand is under the name Ivivva.

In 1998, Lululemon was founded by Dennis Chip Wilson. In the year 2000,

The company follows a multi-faceted strategy which leverages their local ambassadors, social media, in-store community boards, and a variety of grassroots initiatives. The company designs efforts are led by a team of designers based in Vancouver, British Columbia who identify trends based on market intelligence and research. Therefore, Lululemon believes that their success depends on their ability to implement these changes in trends in a timely manner based on consumer demands. A community based approach is sufficient when tailoring your product to a specific market, but based on internal analysis the company should expand their product offerings to a wider segment. We see more and more of inspirational stories where individuals who were previously in the plus size range begin to transform themselves to a healthier weight that leads to a longer life. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation about one-third of American men and women are labeled as obese along with about 13% for children. The Center for Disease control also did a study measuring the trends for BMI from 1960 - 2000 whereby they came to the same conclusions, that the percentage of overweight and obese Americans is increasing. So, despite individual success stories of burning calories and shedding pounds we see an upward trend for plus size Americans. Most likely environmental factors

It is apparent that their sales have been increasing every year; however, creating affordable apparel especially for young adults in college may add more to the bottom line. It may hurt their sales for the higher priced items, but customers with more disposable income who are more sensitive to quality over price may still purchase their expensive items. Therefore, our strategic recommendation would be to create a new brand name and product line which is tailored to be a more inexpensive option for families in a lower income bracket. The fabric we have decided to use as material for this new brand would be traditional cotton as it is both flexible and breathable yet it only costs 64 cents per