Introduction
ZW Rental is an apparel and accessories brand with offline stores and an online platform allowing clients to rent clothes. The platform is a unique proposition because it does not suppose selling clothes and accessories, as the policy of most brands supposes. A clothing rental provides business for both sides of the renter. The store will take money from people wanting to rent their clothing. After that, the store will provide consumers with a platform to rent what they require for the particular term.
Therefore, ZW Rental is the intermediary between people searching for clothes for rent for particular events and individuals who can provide such items. In other words, consumers require clothing for various occasions, and the renters have clothes they can rent. The business start-up idea is consistent with the key trends in the fashion sector, including sustainability and conscious consumption.
Summary of Business Proposition
It is possible to describe the business start-up as an opportunity for clients to receive a better experience while spending significantly less. Customer relationships combine automatic services and co-creation (Chioatto, Zecca, and D’Amato, 2020). The channel format is owned, and the cost structure is fixed. The significant revenue stream, in this case, is receiving money from renting. The main difference from the competitors is the ability of clients to rent clothes and to propose their apparel to others. The vital detail is the online format of the platform’s work, which makes it more convenient for the target audience, mainly millennial females.
Business Model
Target Audience
The brand ZW Rental aims to promote its services among millennial women from 28 to 40 years old. They constitute the target market for the platform for several reasons, including their active online presence and their views on sustainability, eco-conscious consumption, and the desire to keep pace with trends (Shireen and Gopalakrishna, 2021). It is essential to note that the target audience’s values and conduct determine their buying activity (Shireen and Gopalakrishna, 2021).
In the case of millennial females, there is the need to combine the desire to follow the fast fashion industry trends and preserve their sustainability and ecologically friendly views. Sharing the apparel and accessories they need only occasionally corresponds to the target audience’s ideological perspectives. In addition, the online format of the platform’s work makes it the perfect solution for this age group that prefers buying clothes online using mobile applications or websites (Pedersen, Gwozdz, and Hvass, 2018). It allows the assumption that ZW Rental focuses on the qualities that the target population of millennial women shares and promotes, which is vital to its future success.
Therefore, ZW Rental is the proposition that corresponds to millennial women’s values, including sustainability, following fashion trends, and ecologically oriented attitude to apparel. The company needs to ensure that the brand identity reflects the ideological values of the target audience. For instance, the color palette and the choice of font should emphasize the aesthetic side of the brand and feature the minimalist elements that are popular among millennial women.
Brand Identity Prism
According to Kapferer’s brand identity prism, the character of the company and the population it targets should correlate visually with the brand’s essence (Gronow, 2020). The externalized components of the company’s identity prism include relationship, physique, and reflection (Gronow, 2020). They depend on the way the client perceives the business. On the other hand, personality, self-image, and culture are internalized factors that depend on how the company intends to be seen by its target audience (Gronow, 2020). For instance, the advertising campaigns and the logo should emphasize the connection between young adult women who share clothes.
Marketing Communication
Marketing pays much attention to the integrated communication strategy. It is supposed to use all channels of communication and brand promotion effectively to increase public awareness of the service. In the case of ZW Rental, emphasis will be placed on promoting the platform on social media using advertising campaigns featuring fashion images. In addition, physical advertising in the streets is also effective. It is critical to let the target audience learn about the opportunity to rent their clothes using the platform ZW Rental proposes and to lend the apparel there.
The critical resources required in this case are the expansion of the platform’s website, mobile application, and its advertising on social media. The company’s partner is the logistics company, which can provide its services to ZW Rental clients. Therefore, the start-up costs are comparatively low because there is no need for an offline presence and opening physical stores, at least in the initial stage of business development.
Competitor Analysis
The analysis of the competitors is critical in understanding the sphere of renting clothes and accessories in the UK. It is impossible to state that no companies work in the same format as ZW Rental because these services are comparatively popular. Competitors include such platforms as Hurr, Rotaro, Onloan, and Cocoon. Considering these rivals in the context of the fashion they provide and the apparel prices in these stores is necessary.
For instance, Huss and Cocoon provide more classical and less trendy clothes and accessories than Rotaro and Onloan, but their prices are significantly higher. Another competitor is My Wardrobe HQ, and the main difference, in this case, is the number of items available for rent and the pace of apparel rotation. At the same time, ZW Rental has the opportunity to provide customers with a balanced solution concerning the price, the number of propositions in the store, and the following trends. It makes the position of ZW Rental promising among the competitors in the chosen sphere.
Start-Up Risks and Solutions
ZW Rental features the common risks faced by start-ups in the fashion industry, especially those working with used clothes. The first issue is the quality of the company’s apparel and accessories. The vital detail is that the brand is the platform for communication between the person who wants to rent the item and the individual who wants to lend it for money. Therefore, there should be a way for the company to guarantee the item’s quality, which is challenging because ZW Rental does not own it. It is possible to minimize the risk by asking the person who rents the item to send a video and photos of the product for rent to show its quality (Thompson, Schulman, and Meysenburg,2020).
Another point of concern is that the person who lends the cloth can spoil it and return it in a poor state. This risk can be mitigated by adding the cost to the item that will be returned automatically after the person who rents the cloth receives it and checks its state.
It is possible to assume that the online functioning of the platform is connected with the risks concerning the work of the application and the website. There is a vital need for highly professional technical support and IT specialists to quickly solve problems with the platform and react to the client’s concerns. The platform should be stable, and it might be risky, especially at the beginning of the company’s work (Dekker and Okano-Heijmans, 2020). For this reason, ZW Rental should hire more people responsible for technical and client support to solve the issues arising from the platform and the organization of the company’s work.
Conclusion
ZW Rental is a unique solution for people who do not want to buy clothes for a single occasion and support unregulated consumption. A conscious and sustainable approach to their apparel is the basic idea for online platform users. The vital detail is that this type of business start-up supposes that the company is the mediator between people who have clothes for rent and those who want to lend these items. It minimizes the problem of searching for goods and working with suppliers and logistics.
In general, ZW Rental guarantees both sides of the agreement that one side will receive money, and another will receive the product they order. An investigation into the business model and the details surrounding the work of ZW Rental may be helpful when preparing the final report. It provides sufficient information about the firm and weak sides of the business proposition, allowing for the improvement of the business model.
Reference List
Chioatto, E., Zecca, E. and D’Amato, A. (2020) ‘Which innovations for circular business models?: A product life-cycle approach’, FEEM, pp. 1-27.
Dekker, B. and Okano-Heijmans, M. (2020) Europe’s digital decade?: Navigating the global battle for digital supremacy. Clingendael Institute.
Gronow, J. (2020) Deciphering markets and money: A sociological analysis of economic institutions. Helsinki University Press.
Pedersen, E. R. G., Gwozdz, W. and Hvass, K. K. (2018) ‘Exploring the relationship between business model innovation, corporate sustainability, and organisational values within the fashion industry. Journal of Business Ethics, 149(2), pp. 267–284.
Shireen, M. and Gopalakrishna, P. (2021) An empirical study identifying fair trade consumer attributes of compassion and sustainability awareness. Journal of Fair Trade, 3(1), pp. 32-43.
Thompson, A. W., Schulman, R. and Meysenburg, N. (2020) Evaluating the digital standard: How to assess the security of the Internet of Things. New America.