Patagonia is a designer of outdoor clothing and gear for the silent sports: climbing, surfing, skiing and snowboarding, fly fishing, and trail running. Their clothing is deemed as high end, as the products sold are high in price and quality. In relation to competitors two brands (The North Face and Columbia Sportswear) they compete with Patagonia in selling high end outdoor/ sports wear.

Although Patagonia can be easy to confuse with little difference in pricing and selling of winter athleticwear it can be difficult to decipher which has the upper hand (Ryan, 2014). Patagonia is aimed more at helping visitors of the website around the ins and outs of the company, whereas the other two are aimed more towards the purchasing of products. When opening both Columbia and TNF visitors are greeted with headers that are sections of what each sell; Men, Women, Kids and Footwear. The general feel that Patagonia’s website offers is that of a blog, utilising images of outdoor activities such as surfing, hiking etc. Patagonia’s current global ranking is 2,681 whereas The North Face (TNF) ranking at 3,641 and Columbia ranking 7,513. these results indicate that Patagonia rank higher globally upon their digital website (SimilarWeb, 2018).

Digital media channels have the use of communication techniques, this is such functionalities as search engine marketing and online E-PR to enable maximisation of favourable mentions of brand on third party media sites (Chaffey and Ellirs-Chadwick, 2016). Key to successful audience segmentation is not just the identification of customers but knowing what kinds of information they prefer to receive and how. In doing this targeted information is sent to specific groups of customers using medias that are best suited to buying behaviour (Miller, 2012). Patagonia’s market segmentation includes men and women aged 18-35, those with disposable income, maintains an active lifestyle, enjoys nature and outdoors, value for quality products and conscious buyers (Sublett, 2018). Buyer personas are fictional, generalised representations of your ideal customers, they are used as a means to understand your customers better, making it easier to tailor content to the specific needs, behaviours, and concerns of different groups (Vaughan, 2018).

Ben:

• Background– an avid hiker, who makes repeat purchases upon Patagonia’s website’. Has a high interest in the environment, recycles, cycles to work and is a vegan.
• Demographic- fits in the 35-50 age range.
• Identifiers- has a calm demeanour, very active and communicates through a smartphones that he is solely responsible for.
• Goals- support the care of the environment.

Ben is wanting to replace his current insulated jacket, after having the jacket for 2 years he is in need of repurchasing a new one. Court et al (2009) state that customers have touch points and are metamorphosed as a ‘funnel’. The funnel analogy suggests that consumers systematically narrow the initial-consideration set as they weigh options, make decisions, and buy products. With this being said as Ben is a repeat purchaser, the touch point is successful as he has intent in trading in his old clothing for a new jacket. Post purchase, Ben receives an email to confirm his order and its estimated time of arrival. About 64 percent of shoppers “consider transactional confirmation emails to be the most valuable messages in their inboxes,” (Roggio, 2016).

Michael:

• Background- a student who is currently studying away from home. He is browsing Patagonia website to make a potential purchase, he has never made a purchase from them before.
• Demographic- fits in the 18-24 age range.
• Identifiers- has a hyperactive demeanour, very active on the consumption of alcohol and communicates through a smartphone and is completely in control in terms of access.
• Goals- graduate University and get into a high end job.

Michael visits Patagonia.com looking at the fleeces that they have, this is as a fashion statement as a pose to finding a fleece that may be warm. As stated by Mckinsey (1999) The funnel analogy suggests that consumers systematically narrow the initial-consideration set as they weigh options, make decisions, and buy products (Raisel, 1999). Micheal is a student and therefore has a non disposable income, meaning his funnel is lower than that of Ben’s. Micheal clicks through to the jacket he likes but the price of the fleece is ranged too high for Micheal to be able to buy, resulting in him clicking off the website furthermore not making the purchase. Companies use a premium pricing strategy when they want to charge higher prices than their competitors for their products. The goal is to create the perception that the products must have a higher value than competing products because the prices are higher (Woodruff, 2018). Instead of Michael making a purchase from Patagonia he later visits a charity shop in which he can purchase a recycled fleece at a lower price.

Vaughan’s persona model can be accessed at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-research

To make a comprehensive conclusion, it is clear that Patagonia’s website is easy to use and is a utilisation of the brands ethics and overall company message; making high end products without the cost upon the effects of the environment. Although they run very closely with TNF in terms of brand position, in terms of outdoor sports wear, Patagonia’s overall visits out ride TNF.

References:

Chaffey, D and Ellis-Chadwick, F(2016)Digital marketing.6^thed.Harlow[etc.]:Pearson.

Rasial. E (1999) ‘Using the techniques of the world top strategic ‘ McGaw-Hill Education.

Miller. M (2012) ‘B2B Digital Marketing: Using the web to market directly to businesses’ Pearson Education, Inc.

Sublett. C (2018) ‘Patagonia Inc. Brand Audit’ Accessed at: https://patagoniabrandaudit.weebly.com/consumer-profile.html#

Roggio. A (2016) ‘Order confirmation emails can build brand loyalty, sell more’. Accessed at: https://www.practicalecommerce.com/Order-Confirmation-Emails-Can-Build-Loyalty-Sell-More

Ryan. K (2014) ‘The Bottom Line: Patagonia, North Face and the myth of Green Consumerism’ Groundswell. Accessed at: https://groundswell.org/the-bottom-line-patagonia-north-face-and-the-myth-of-green-consumerism/

Patagonia (2018) ‘Company Information’ Accessed at: https://www.patagonia.com/company-info.html

Vaughan. P (2018) ‘How to create a detailed buyer personas for your business’. Accessed at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-research

Woodruff. J (2018) ‘What is premium pricing strategy?’. Accessed at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/premium-pricing-strategy-1107.html