J.Crew by Devin Battersby

J.Crew: Final Term Project

By Devin Battersby
Fashion Institute of Technology

FM 323-702 E-Commerce

Professor Sheetal Vitha

Sping 2013

Supply Chain Management

J.Crew promotes a responsible supply chain and has a Responsible Sourcing program. J.Crew looks to be environmental even into the supply chain and maintains a positive relationship with their suppliers. Together with J.Crew’s suppliers they look to reduced waste, and conserve energy and water. J.Crew and their suppliers work towards developing the optimum practices in order to improve the environment impact required to manufacture J.Crew, Madewell, and crewcuts products. J.Crew is very social responsible when it comes to supply chain management and they are dedicated to achieving excellence in all aspects of their business. J.Crew requires that vendors to agree to a code of conduct for all its workers, supervisors, and the suppliers themselves. The code of conduct includes laws and regulations in regards to child labor, forced labor, discrimination, wages and benefits, hours of work, health and safety, and customs and security among others. J.Crew participates in announced and unannounced inspections of their manufacturing facilities to make sure that suppliers are complying with their Code of Vendor Conduct. The inspections may include private worker interviews, document review, and walking through the facility to inspect the workplace safety and health. J.Crew works with 180 suppliers which totals 286 factories across the world. In 2011 alone J.Crew inspected 88% of their existing facilities and 100% of their new manufacturing facilities. Countries in which J.Crew has suppliers include the United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Canada, Brazil, France, Spain, China, India, Thailand, and South Korea to name a few.

Customer Relation Management

J.Crew’s online presence makes the customer feel pampered, and offers one-on-one direct emailing with wedding specialists and personal shoppers. When an item is purchased a confirmation email is promptly sent to the consumer. Items bought online are returnable up to 60 days after the purchase date for full refund or exchange. J.Crew provides a phone number that can be called any time or day of the week that will connect the customer with a customer service representative. 

Brand Awareness

When you go on the J.Crew website the first thing you notice is the clean-cut and basic design of the website. The J.Crew logo is centered at the top of the page in its iconic and simple font. J.Crew is known for their advertisements with the beginnings of their business being their first catalog in 1983. The newest collections and pieces from J.Crew are highlighted on the website homepage for consumers to easily browse new merchandise.

Customer Behavior

J.Crew has a loyal customer base that knows and appreciates J.Crew for quality and trendy merchandise at a reasonable price. In late 2012 J.Crew launched an advertisement campaign focusing on their loyal customers who they nicknamed “jcrewaholics”. The ad campaign was featured in both print and social and digital media channels. First Lady Michelle Obama has influenced customer behavior over the last 4 years by being a loyal J.Crew customer. During the 2009 Presidential Inauguration Michelle Obama wore sage green leather gloves from J.Crew and her daughters both wore jackets designed by J.Crew. That afternoon the whole women’s section of the J.Crew website had crashed due to the high volume of customers who so desperately wanted to own the same J.Crew clothes as the Obamas. 

Market and Customer Segmentation

The 2012 ad campaign “jcrewaholics” was targeted towards young adults ages 25 to 34 who are in the career-building stages of their life, and can’t dress to casual to work anymore. In addition to advertising on their website and on social media networks J.Crew also increased their presence in publications including “Vanity Fair”, “Vogue”, and the Sunday “New York Times”. All of these publications carry fashion-forward, elite, and esteemed following, which in turn will get the attention of potential target customers and existing customers. J.Crew is very good at segmenting their business and targeting the people need to target. Their brand extensions including J.Crew weddings, J.Crew Collection, Crewcuts, and Madewell all target very different ages and hobbies and lifestyles while maintaining similar clean-cut, on-trend, and affordable designs. In late March of this year J.Crew announced that they would be spending less money on their catalog and investing more money in digital marketing and advertising, customer research, and customer segmentation tools.

Consumer Targeting

In December of 2012 J.Crew re-launched their twitter after going “dark” for a year. J.Crew also launched an Instagram and Pinterest to target consumers on social media networks. Customer service and targeting through Facebook could be a very useful tool for J.Crew. STELLAService a customer service evaluation company did a survey that “Time” magazine released, which said that J.Crew was one of the fifteen out of twenty retailers studied that did not respond to questions from customers on their page. This proves that while J.Crew has social media in place to connect with their customers, they have a lot of improvements to make. J.Crew also uses advertisements like the “jcrewaholics” advertisements to reach their target customer.