CASE 5-3
Eddie Bauer: Strategize with
Secondary Marketing Data
Eddie Bauer, Inc., is a leading international retail
brand, offering casual lifestyle products for adults
through its retailing concepts: Eddie Bauer and Eddie
Bauer Home. Eddie Bauer products are for men and
women who seek versatile, classically styled, highquality
merchandise designed to meet a wide range
of their apparel and home-furnishing needs. Since
1920, the company has evolved from a single store in
Seattle to a multichannel, international company with
more than 590 stores worldwide. In addition, Eddie
Bauer has 110 million catalogs in circulation and an
online website (www.eddiebauer.com). The company
operates stores in the United States and Canada, and
has joint venture partnerships in Germany and Japan.
Eddie Bauer has long considered the location of
stores as the key element for maximizing sales. However,
the problem has been how to choose these prime
locations. Until recently, the company relied on basic
census information, such as income and number of
households, when choosing locations for new stores.
But recent demographic changes in the United States
and Canada have made this task more complex.
So Eddie Bauer purchased Clarita’s online geocoding
and GIS mapping software, along with databases
to provide precise knowledge for identifying ideal location.
The first step was to identify potential areas of high
retail expenditures. Information (household growth rate, number of housing units) about these locations along
with consumer information (age, income level, household
size, and education level) were collected using
Clarita’s demographics. Thus, for each proposed store
location, Eddie Bauer’s marketing team gathered detailed
consumer information on the market and potential new
locations relative to existing stores and competitors.
Moreover, Eddie Bauer’s marketing team started
to use Clarita’s
Potential Rating Index Zip Markets
(PRIZM) geocoding system to evaluate existing sites
and current customers. For example, they not only profiled the shoppers at its five best-performing retail
outlets but also studied the branches that were not doing
very well. The profile of the shoppers would help the
marketing team identify the shared characteristics of
customers who frequent Eddie Bauer Stores. This knowledge
would be very helpful not only in deciding on new
site locations, interior designs, and merchandising mix
but also in developing the store concept. This detailed
consumer information prepares Eddie Bauer to compete
more efficiently in the ever-changing retail industry.
Write a 3-5 page paper for the following questions:
1. What demographic and geographic information
should Eddie Bauer collect to select store
locations?
2. What kind of information regarding the competitive
environment of the market in which Eddie
Bauer operates is needed when choosing store
locations?
3. Suggest methods by which Eddie Bauer can conduct
marketing research to identify the shared
characteristics of those customers who frequent
Eddie Bauer stores versus the characteristics of
customers who frequent the stores of competitors
at various locations.