Clicks and Mortar: The Race to Win in the Future of Online versus Offline Fashion Retail Branding

The fashion branding and retail industry have seemingly changed more rapidly in the last few years than in previous decades, while the environment for retail brands has never been more complex in terms of generating consumer engagement. We can perhaps most usefully typify this situation as a race, with the various fashion brands at all levels of the fashion industry jockeying for position (Porter 1980), suggesting that companies can only survive and prosper in a given business environment by understanding the competitive forces that prevail, such as technology and market forces, and adopting or embracing strategic approaches to tackle those things in order to prosper and survive in the future. In doing this, all fashion brands from value to luxury (Okonkwo 2009) are effectively jockeying for position in the race to win the hearts and minds of consumers against a backdrop of economic uncertainty. Set against this fashion brand retail race to win, are fourfold disruptive forces prevailing in the current retail environment: the evolution of the store as a business model, the increasing use of mobile technology, the dominance of social networking, and constantly evolving demographic shifts and trends. In addition, considerations such as competitive price points (Grewal et al. 2010); experiential consumerism (Pine and Gilmore 1999), personalisation; trust and convenience will also influence consumer behaviour and sales (Brown, Kozinets, and Sherry 2003).
In response to this, brands are strategically positioning themselves in various ways as traditional bricks and mortar retailers, pure digital retailers, omni-channel jugglers, and new players with disruptive business models, given the range of mergers and acquisitions taking place amidst this fashion e-commerce race facilitating the emergence of new digital business models and managerial shifts. At the heart of the issue, this exploratory paper will investigate the debate as to whether online or offline fashion branding strategies will dictate the future of fashion retail and consumption, by analysing the branding strategies. This will include the brand identity, brand presence, and developing brand relationships that are being implemented in different ways, by selected fashion organisations, in the race for their future survival.