REI Marketing Strategy

Marketing

Marketing is a method through which businesses communicate the value of their products to their target market in order to increase sales volume and ultimately profit. Marketing entails leveraging all avenues that reach the biggest population of the target market in order to obtain new consumers and maintain existing ones. It is also a way of strengthening a firm’s competitive edge over competitors by establishing a dominant market household name. Today, media is the best communication channel because it can reach a large portion of the market. Companies have created websites that allow customers to examine and order the things they want to buy. This is the case for Recreational Equipment Incorporated, a company that deals with sports products. This paper seeks to explore and compare its marketing strategies with those of its competitors, National Sporting Goods Association and Sports and Fitness Industry Association.

REI

REI was established by a Pacific Mountaineer Lloyd in the year 1930s. It was founded with the purpose of supplying sporting gear, and their products have innovated gradually leading the firm into a household name. However, while in the past conventional methods of marketing were used, today it website is regularly modified to exhibit the prevailing promotion techniques and goods available. Its website not only portrays the prices and products available, but it also gives an insight on the payment methods available. Recreational Equipment Incorporated website provides a price catalog for all the sportswear and gear they avail (“REI: Deals on Outdoor Gear, Equipment, and Clothing for Skiing, Snowboarding, Camping, Cycling, Fitness, and More,” 2017). Nonetheless, unlike its prior website information that gave discount rates, it now allows customers to earn a $20 gift card for every $100 spent. Additionally, the company utilizes both stores and online shopping as their distribution strategies. This makes its products available to all clients depending on their preferred method of shopping. It allows them to get a MasterCard that gives a hundred dollars gift card to be used within a sixty-day shopping period. It also offers membership privileges to its clientele (“Outdoor Clothing, Gear, and Footwear from Top Brands,” 2017)

4Ps Marketing Mix

Price

The pricing of the products that REI coop sells is very competitive. With the organization offering various discounts on products as recurrently as possible, it has maintained its current clientele and even brought in more customers. Some of the discounts given include a 20% discount off the main price for camping gear, 50% off for cycling gear and 50% off women and men clothing. Such discounts attract more customers and are healthy for the organization’s competitiveness.

Product

One of the key strengths that REI has on its product portfolio is diversity. The company sells a range of products from camping gear, cycling gear, bikes, rafts, and other forms of wear for camping and adventure. With such a large variety of products from various merchants, the company is better placed at meeting all customer needs.

Place

The company uses a brick and mortar as well as an ecommerce approach to doing business. This way, customers can order products throughout the country and even from anywhere in the world and customers can buy goods physically from the various stores around the country. This way, the market share served in infinite for the e-commerce and predictable for the physical stores.

Promotion

REI employs multiple strategies in promoting its products and its various services. Primarily, the use of pricing discounts and social media marketing are the dominant approaches. Others include offering permanent membership to customers, as well as organizing events and adventures for the members. Similarly, customers give their narration of experiences they have had in the wild. Sharing such experiences has motivated other people to try out these adventures and likewise, REI products.

Marketing Strategies

Marketing is a business strategy that allows enterprises to create awareness on the products they offer and build a public image for themselves. Organizations use integrated marketing strategies such as giving discounts, membership and participating in events to create a dominant brand and compete against their rival firms. REI also offers membership, participates in sporting events, and maintains a website that allows online shopping but focuses less on the firm. Its rival associations, on the contrary, concentrate more on their organizations and participate in numerous sports occasions.

References

About SFIA Overview. (2017). Sfia.org. Retrieved 25 April 2017, from

https://www.sfia.org/about/overview

National Sports and Goods Association (2017). Nsga.org. Retrieved 25 April 2017, from

https://www.nsga.org/about/

Outdoor Clothing, Gear, and Footwear from Top Brands. (2017). REI. Retrieved 25 April 2017,

from https://www.rei.com/

REI: Deals on Outdoor Gear, Equipment, and Clothing for Skiing, Snowboarding, Camping,

Cycling, Fitness, and More. (2017). Web.archive.org. Retrieved 25 April 2017, from

https://web.archive.org/web/20090310191918/http://www.rei.com/