Founded in 1998, Lululemon Athletica, the Canada-based maker of stylish, upscale

Question

Founded in 1998, Lululemon Athletica, the Canada-based maker of stylish, upscale workout clothes, had grown very quickly. A pioneer of the “athleisure” trend for women—that is, wearing casual clothing outside of the gym—Lululemon had been best known for its yoga pants. Lululemon had a thriving online business, as well as physical stores in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Although Lululemon’s core strength had been its women’s clothing, the company also sold men’s clothing. Lululemon’s sales had grown rapidly, but the company faced some important challenges. First, other activewear companies, such as Nike Inc. and Under Armour Inc., had begun to directly compete with Lululemon in the athleisure market. Also, Lululemon had difficulty recovering from a 2013 controversy, in which the company had to recall a large number of black yoga pants because their fabric was too transparent. Chip Wilson, CEO of Lululemon, compounded the problem by offering the explanation that “frankly some women’s bodies just don’t actually work for it.” Mr. Wilson resigned from Lululemon, and the company continued to grow under new leadership. Lululemon has been pursuing the strategy of growing its male market. Despite Lululemon’s association with women’s clothing, men’s clothing has had strong pro ts and some loyal customers. Your task is to consider what secondary sources can be used to examine Lululemon’s
current strength and potential in the men’s athleisure market. Should Lululemon invest more resources into its men’s market?

1 What internal secondary sources does Lululemon already have that the company could use to gain insights on its men’s market? Be sure to consider supplier records, retail store records, website information, and sales force records.

2. Which external published sources and data aggregators have useful information about Lululemon’s current position and the potential for the men’s athleisure market? In your investigation, include the following:

a. Business publications (e.g., New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Economist, etc.)

b. Trade and professional association information (e.g., athleticbusiness.com, wewear.org, etc.)

c. Academic journals (search using your library’s database of business journals)

d. Industry information (check your library’s sources,

3. Where does Lululemon currently have men’s only stores? Use the American Community Survey to identify a promising metropolitan statistical area (MSA) for Lululemon to locate its next men’s only store. Justify your decision.   

4. Conduct an investigation of social media to examine user-generated content related to Lululemon.

a. What are the trending topics on social media related to Lululemon? (Use a free social media aggregator, such as Addictomatic or Twazzup, to investigate.)

b. What is the sentiment of the comments related to Lululemon? Compare the sentiment ratio of Lululemon to two of its competitors. What does that mean?

c. What other sources of user-generated content can you find on social media? Do consumer perceptions appear to be supportive of sale of Lululemon’s men’s clothing? Explain.

5. Integrate your information from the preceding questions to determine whether or not Lululemon should invest more heavily in its men’s market. Justify your response using information from your search of secondary data.

Explanation / Answer

Solution:

1. Lululemon would already be having Primary data i.e the dispatches from the factory to the distributors and direct sale data gathered through online sales. Secondary data pertains to the channel partners data such as sales from the distributor and retailers to the actual consumers. Therefore to get an authentic viewpoint of sale status the company will need to go through the sales records and stock position of its distributors, retailers and online sales data to know the actual sale. Data from secondary sources are important since even though primary sales would have been recorded by the company, the actual consumer demand will only be known by analyzing actual movement of sales to consumers and retailers and the left over stock levels.

2. External published sources where authentic sales and revenue data would be available are the trade and professional associations such as Chamber of Commerce or Industry specific trade magazines.

3. The case study does not specifically mentions that Lululemon operated men's only stores. It says it also sold men's wear along with women's and the stores are located in US, Canada, Japan & Australia.

The company can open its men's only store in any city located in an area where it can be accessed conveniently by home residents and college or sports academy students. The area can be selected by careful analysis of demographic data sourced from local city administrative office and by physical survey.   

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