ch.8 Segmenting and Targeting Markets

The fashion apparel retail market can be segmented using the following factors: geographic, demographic, and psychographic. 
American Apparel studied these factors to create segments.
 
1. Geographic segmentation
American Apparel’s retail stores are usually located in life style streets of local folk who look for the basics rather than the fancy midtown sites. also, the stores are located in college towns such as Gainesville, Fla., and East Lansing, Mich., home to the University of Florida and Michigan State University. It’s because of the company’s target market that is young urbanites who see themselves as unique instead of as part of a generic, main-stream fashion culture.
According to each place where the retail stores are located, American Apparel differs their merchandise mix. For example, in New York City, the merchandise of the shop in Columbia University area and the one in Tribeca is different. The store in Tiribeca, where there are many young married people who have a baby or babies, have much more baby products than in Columbia University.  

2. Demographic segmentation.
-Age: American Apparel mainly targets young adults of 20-35. they steer away from the under-18 age. also, they choose not to go after the popular 35-45 age bracket and people over the age of 45.
-Gender: female and male
-Income: related to the age of the target, the company knows many of this target market have entry-level jobs which means they are not making six-digit figures, but they are making less than $100,000 a year. Others are still in school and some may have started living their own lives . 
-Family Life Cycle: American Apparel targets people who are young single and young married or divorced with or without children. They focus on “young” adults because they are tend to invest in fashion.

3. Psychographic segmentation
-Personality: American Apparel targets young adults who see themselves as unique. they love to show their personality through fashion. They love to mix and match things to express their uniqueness. So American Apparel’s products which are basic but unique at the same time, apeal to them.
-Motives: as American Apparel’ is known for “Made in USA”, the company targets customers with motives that when they buy American Apparel’s product, they not only buy a hip clothing but also support to create jobs in USA.
-Lifestlyes: since the company focuses on young metropolitan adults as their target market, American Apparel produces comfortable and also fashionable items in reasonable prices. They have wide range of t-shirt lines for young adults who don’t dress up so much.

As i mentioned above, American Apparel targets,
“Young urbanites(20-35) who see themselves as unique instead of as part of a generic, main-stream fashion culture and who have disposable income.” 
The company uses concentrated targeting. For example, they advertise not only on the magazines and billboards but also on the fashion blogs that their target market can easily see. Also, their unique and eye-catching advertisements apeal to their target market. However, it may be “too unique” because a large amount of the public does not dress in the ways seen in their ads.