Current+situation+-+Dani

Ukamaku is an online platform and community for Canadian designers. The company focuses on selling and promoting local brands through their website ukamaku.com as well as trough off line events (such as pop up shops (1) and trunk shows (2)). The company’s main office is located on the vivacious downtown Toronto, at 219 Dufferin street, alongside many other creative businesses. The team is composed of only five directors (communications, operations, customer relations, fashion and arts), an intern and an outsourced web developer. The Operations and Communications director officially launched the company in November 2010. Ukamaku praises itself for being a vendor for high-end fashion, only selling clothing that is perfectly tailored with outstanding quality in materials used. They even extend this idea by allowing some of the products to be tailored to the customer’s sizing specifications. Ukamaku has two types of customers: designers and end-consumers. The designers pay Ukamaku a set fee to sell their products and be featured on Ukamaku.com. The end-consumers pay to get the products from the designers. The company keeps a percentage of sales made through their site (30% of regular prices and 25% of sales prices). (1) pop-up shops: temporary stores that are set up at a high-end location for one or two days, that allow costumers to purchase apparel offline. (2) Trunk show: one or two day events to show-case new collections of featured designers. Usually invite-only attendance, targeted at media and fashion-buyers. Ukamaku is still on its early stages. However, the company has been growing steadily. Their sales amount has doubled since activities started, 6 months ago. Currently, Ukamaku.com has 30 signed designers as well as with a pool of 1000 registered customers. The target market for Ukamaku products is comprised mainly of 18 to 35 year-old females who live in North America. Ukamaku also has a secondary market segment, composed of males in the same, 18 to 35 year-old, age group. Due to the price range and type of product sold, the company’s target market is comprised of class A consumers, with high buying power and easy access to technology.
 * About (briefing)**
 * Current Situation**
 * Current Target Market & Positioning**

Ukamaku’s products are clothing and accessories produced exclusively by Canadian designers. The products are produced only from high-end material and in small quantities. Ukamaku requires that all pieces that designers make available are limited in quantity and perfectly tailored (not mass produced). The company also renders services to designers in order to help them promote their brand, increasing sales through their online platform. These services include feeding articles to media, promoting events such as trunk shows and pop-up shows, and strongly supporting the designer’s public relations initiatives. As part of their services, Ukamaku also helps designer manage their businesses, helping them compose their business plans paying special attention to budgeting and deadlines. Ukamaku’s products’ price range is mostly from $50 to $300, with some products priced above or below that spectrum. The prices vary according to designer and type of product (ex: coat, earring, custom fitted etc.). The designers are the ones responsible to provide the price for each item and Ukamaku keeps 30% of the effective price. Designers have to pay a fee of $30 dollars per month in order to be featured in the site and also get assistance with uploading their products and creating their online brand presence on ukamaku’s platform. The products are all positioned in the company’s website, which is their only platform for sales. They are categorized in women and men’s sections with subcategories for “sales, blouses, casual tops, dresses, sweaters & knits, tees and t-shirts, pants, skirts, Jackets and blazers, outerwear, bags and accessories, jewelry, and shoes and sandals”. They can also be viewed according to designers. When Ukamaku runs its pop up shops, the products are made available at the venue of the events. They are organized in clothes racks and divided according to designers. Ukamaku has focused most of its efforts in promoting the designers and their clothing/ accessories. It is the company’s strategy to make their designers gain visibility. Therefore, for the past months, most of the marketing budget and resources has gone towards generating media coverage (online and offline) of designers and events (pop-up shops and trunk shoes) promotions. We acknowledge that not enough effort has been put in promoting the Ukamaku brand itself. They currently operate under the assumption that if the designer’s work is effectively promoted consequently the target market will be drawn to the company’s website the website. Also, they assume that the quality and tailoring of the products the designers produced will be carried over to the corporate brand image, with no need of further promotional initiative. The company also has a strong social media initiative, using Facebook and Twitter to advertise products and promotions (such as seasonal giveaways). Another interesting initiative that is still in its early stages is the use of ‘Kaboodle’ and ‘Polyvore’ as tools to help build a community around the products sold by Ukamaku. These social media websites allow users to compile lookbooks and sets with images of products that are uploaded to the site. They can also rate each other’s looks and “lists”. Ukamaku has recently started uploading products that are sold on their e-store to those sites so users can select them. These images are accompanied by links that take the user to the site if they are interested in buying it. Even though this initiative is appealing because it provides an opportunity to drive traffic for free, it is still far from producing concrete results (no traffic has been generated yet).
 * 4 Ps: Product/Services, Price, place, promotion**
 * 4.1 – Products/ services**
 * 4.2 - Price**
 * 4.3 – Place**
 * 4.4 – Promotion**

The company operates at a central office in downtown Toronto. The team is comprised of an Operations manager, a communication director, a designer, a fashion director and a Customer Relations director in their main office. Ukamaku’s public relations and web hosting/ web master is outsourced. The company has no inventory, so the designers send the products to the Tornto central office only when a customer places an order.
 * Operation**

Their current financial situation is steady and improving. The company is doing well enough to break even and incur some profit through its activities. Most of the profits currently come for direct activities with designers (business plans, featuring and promotion). Therefore it is crucial for Ukamaku to increase the revenue made from end-consumer purchases, in order to guarantee a long-run financial success. They can achive this through market penetration and market development strategies.
 * Financial Situation**