Spirit & Free: adapting assortment strategies across rapidly growing channels in fashion retail

Social implications This paper aims to describe the cross-channel challenges experienced by a leading US fashion retailer and illustrates the adaptation to consumer needs as led by a female divisional head and female executive. Learning outcomes The teaching objectives include to understand the assortment planning complexities experienced by merchandise managers; address critical issues surrounding channel strategies; identify the data needs for assortment improvement and cross-channel management; investigate responsive solutions for customer-focused assortment diversification; and explore the challenges associated with continual retail channel adaptation. Case overview/synopsis The fashion retailer Spirit & Free (S&F) (pseudonym) is a Fortune 500 retailer. As a multi-channel retailer, S&F is proud of the consistency of the brand’s identity across channels. However, recently, S&F has noticed a difference between their mobile (m-commerce, social commerce) and in-store/e-commerce customers. Through this case study, students will follow the Women’s Apparel Divisional Merchandise Manager and explore how the business will maintain a consistent brand identity and capture both sets of customers through assortment planning. Resources will be provided for assortment planning analysis, and students will be asked to consider assortment opportunities regarding category mix and pricing strategy. Complexity academic level The case would be relevant to upper-level undergraduate courses or introductory master's level course in retail, management, fashion merchandising and omni-channel retail. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CCS 8: Marketing