Koi Footwear are a women’s footwear company that specialises solely online in the UK. They are a popular footwear company that has a strong theme and style throughout their website and offers easy access with categories and sub-categories to make their website the easiest to use. Their homepage presents their recent collaboration with popular bloggers, Sydney and Ellie, which entices their target market, and fits in to their brightly-coloured scheme. Although Koi have got their theme checked, they are not found on the first page of Google regarding key word search, and their homepage does not advertise many products, like their competitors do. Analysing the AIPD model (Simeon, 1999), we can see that Koi score high in ‘attracting’, ‘positioning’ and ‘delivery’, but could work on ‘informing’. Koi also use online partnerships, interactive ads and emails to engage target markets (Chaffey’s Five Channels).
Competitors and Benchmarks
Public Desire are a UK online women’s footwear website that is a strong competitor for Koi. They are most known for their heels, however offer a large range of boots, all for various occasions. Public Desire have cemented their space, as they have recently started selling clothing alongside their shoes and offer student discount, which is desirable for their target market. Similar to Koi, Public Desire are not found in key word searches on Google, so they do not hold much distance over Koi. Additionally, unlike Koi, they do not have a strong theme throughout. Although they do have a house style of pastel pink, their ‘sale’ area is neon colours, which does not fit in to their elegant style. These may hold them back, however they are still Koi’s top competitor in terms of popularity within the target market, and are also able to obtain high profile collaborations with the likes of Hailey Baldwin.
Simmi London are also a UK online women’s footwear company that specialises in heels and heeled boots. Although they do offer heels, flats, sandals and boots, they do not offer any type of casual flats, like their competitors do. When it comes to their heels, however, Simmi have a strong theme throughout, with even all their items matching, which is desirable to any consumers and target market. As they are more formal, they may attract an older target market alongside which of Koi’s, however they still offer cheap shoes for high quality, which will be attractive, especially alongside their offer of student discount. They also have a hashtag of #SimmiGirl, which has created them a huge following of popular bloggers and vloggers online. Like their competitors, they are also not found on the key word search.
Target Market
Koi Footwear’s target market are ‘Generation Z’; teenagers and young adults, 16-25. This is similar to their competitors, however, to help understand this target market further, we are able to create ‘buyer personas’ (Mulder and Year, 2006). Two buyer personas I have created for Koi Footwear are:
Customer Journeys
In regards to our personas, we can map out a journey that each customer will take when looking at their website, which helps us understand target market further (Carroll, 2000). With Eleanor, we can see that she uses her desktop to look through the website, trying to find an item to purchase. Once finding the items that she wants to purchase, she adds her promotion code found on the homepage, makes a payment, signs up and then changes over to her phone to check her confirmation email.
With Sophie, she takes a different route, as she finds a viral video (for example the video below by Jordan Lipscombe, 1.5 million subscribers), shares it on her social media, before heading over to the website and purchasing the item that she has seen. Like Eleanor, she also checks her confirmation email.
References
Digital Marketing Institute. (2018). The Beginner’s Guide to Defining Buyer Personas. [online] Available at: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/en-gb/blog/2017-4-27-the-beginners-guide-to-defining-buyer-personas [Accessed 3 Dec. 2018].
Franklin, L. (2018). One million Instagram followers and counting: how Public Desire nails customer experience. [online] Blog.edesk.com. Available at: https://blog.edesk.com/resources/public-desire-customer-experience [Accessed 1 Dec. 2018].
KOI footwear. (2018). Shop Women’s Fashion Shoes, Boots & Heels. [online] Available at: https://www.koifootwear.com [Accessed 3 Dec. 2018].
Publicdesire.com. (2018). Women’s Fashion Boots, Shoes & Footwear – Shop Online | Public Desire. [online] Available at: https://www.publicdesire.com [Accessed 3 Dec. 2018].
Simmi.com. (2018). SIMMI – UK Online Women’s Footwear Destination : Simmi Shoes.. [online] Available at: https://www.simmi.com [Accessed 3 Dec. 2018].
YouTube. (2018). EVERY SHOE LOVERS DREAM | KOI FOOTWEAR TRY ON HAUL AD. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i89SimYTIPs [Accessed 4 Dec. 2018].
YouTube. (2018). Public Desire. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChFksDmEfcJGU6mtfdMavpg [Accessed 3 Dec. 2018].
Very informative post, great stuff!