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Avon Case Answers

In: Business and Management

Submitted By getit123
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Q1) Who is Avon's target market? How can it be segmented?

Avon’s target market is the mass market of roughly 25 million woman aged 25-50 with average to below-average household income. Avon is targeting women who are also not internet savvy or women who want a personal/friendly connection for their purchase or need advice on purchasing beauty products in person and aren’t comfortable getting this advice in a public setting or the internet. These women prefer to meet someone in person who would take their order, give beauty tips in their own home and delivery the beauty products. There are a couple of ways that Avon segments the larger market of women. One segmentation is based on the products they buy (Fragrance, Lipsticks), geography (mainly rural vs. urban setting), purchase amounts/frequency (average purchase amount and number of purchases per year, to separate high buyers and low buyers), and on-line vs. representative access.

Q2) Should Avon sell direct to the consumer? Why or why not? Avon should not sell direct to the consumer. They shouldn’t sell direct because most likely, as was the case when Avon tried to sell by direct mailings, the orders may be too small to meet Avon’s required profit margins. Additionally, Avon would have to make drastic changes to its current business model with regards to sales representatives. The sales representatives would either be completely cut out of the deal (which would not go over well within the company or with the sales representatives) or would most likely not be able to make as much money through an internet sale as an in-person sale and so would not be incentivized to send customers to the website to make purchases. This would require Avon to completely renew their customer segment. The consumer that Avon is targeting is one that wants or needs the assistance of a sales representative for the

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