Burberry - Iconic British Luxury Brand Est. 1856

on Friday, 26 October 2012



According to the Burberry official weblog, they have shared one of their latest news on May 31, CLICK ME FOR MORE INFO which announced that Burberry is embarking on a store opening spree in Brazil and Mexico this year as the British brand targets up-and-coming luxury markets.

Burberry is a British luxury fashion house which distributing fashion clothing, fashion accessories and perfumes.  In British, using a Burberry is very common especially its iconic trench coat. And now, Burberry has announced their latest product, the new automatic power reserve watch. Burberry can occupy so many areas of fashion because their demand is very huge and stable. As title, Burberry is a 156 year-old global luxury brand. It has a huge number of loyal followers since last century. Many consumers are willing to buy their products because their own preferences, the population of Burberry and also the iconic, an icon that state your wealthy and your fashion sense.

Due to demand is high and stable, producer have set a high price for their products to maximize their profit. It is because the demand for Burberry is inelastic which means that the price up will only  decrease a little amount of quantity demanded, but will increase greater the quantity supplied and the total revenue will increase too.


The graph at above has showed the price elasticity of Burberry is inelastic. It is because when the price of Burberry luxury has increased from P1 to P2, the quantity demanded of Burberry luxury decreased but the quantity of Burberry luxury in market has increased from Q1 to Q2. And because the percentage decrease in the quantity demanded is less than the percentage increased in price, therefore it is inelastic.

Besides the loyalty of consumers, the substitution is one of the reasons why the quantity of demanded is increase. Hermes and Chanel luxuries are very expensive and not many people can afford them. According to the substitution effect, when the relative price of a good or services rises, people seek substitutes for it. Therefore, Burberry has become substitutes and the quantity demanded increase. On the other hands, there also have consumers who cannot afford to buy Burberry luxuries, will seek for another substitutes which they willing and afford to buy. Such as Coach and Carlo Rino, the price of them is slightly higher than other normal goods but cheaper than luxuries. They are more suitable for those who cannot afford luxuries but request something better than inferior goods, such as night market goods.

According to the law of supply, when other things remaining the same, the higher the price of a good, the greater is the quantity supplied. However, Burberry has made a different decision which many other luxuries companies will do so. They decided only produces limited goods due to the quantity of products in market more than the quantity of demanded in market, the price of goods will fall.  Therefore Burberry luxuries produce in limited quantity to make sure they can always sell at a high price to earn maximum profit.

Because of the population of luxuries, the quantity demanded for normal goods or inferior goods will decrease and by that time government will set up tax on luxuries. When an item is taxed, its price might rise by the full amount of the tax, by a lesser amount or not at all. If the price rises by the full amount or by a lesser amount than the tax, buyers have the burden of the tax, which means that they have to pay more. It will decrease the quantity demanded of luxuries because the price is rise and according to the law of demand, higher price the good selling, lesser quantity of that good is demanded. Those consumers who cannot afford the higher price will look for normal goods as substitution of luxury. At the end the quantity demanded of normal goods increase.

However, the tax elasticity of demand and supply on luxuries is always inelastic. It means buyers always pay the greater amount of tax or perhaps entire tax. It is because when consumers afford to buy a luxury, they will not mind to pay a little more on tax. They just aim to get what they want to, the tax was not a big deal for them. In fact some of the wealthy consumers willing to pay more tax to show their wealth they are. Therefore normally producers of luxuries will just move all the tax to let consumers to pay it.

Because of the tax, price of Burberry luxury has increased from P1 to P2, and the demand has decreased from D1 to D2, the quantity has decreased from Q1 to Q2. Due to the percentage decrease in quantity is lesser than the percentage decrease in price, therefore Burberry luxury is an inelastic demand.

Different from any other categories, Burberry usually doesn’t face any problem of shortage. First of all there are many substitutions in market that is selling same kind of goods with them. Such as Louis Vuitton and Prada are also selling fashion clothes, accessories and perfumes. Besides that, they might happy to see the shortage happens therefore they can raise the price of goods to maximize their profit. And the shortage will give social an opinion that Burberry luxuries are very hot and selling fast all the time. It might increase the quantity demanded of Burberry luxuries.

Burberry also working hard on propagates their population. They hire celebrity to promote their goods, such as advertisement, short video, and so on. Next, they are having company celebration among the year, by celebrating they had hit the new highs, broke last year’s record and others. Beside that Burberry will also sponsor goods to charity as charity bazaar to collect funds or donate an amount of their profit to those orphanages. Of course they will organize a fashion show to let the world know their latest products. These all things are spreading their name to the world to increase their population. It is helpful to increase their demand and maximize their profit.

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