Growth of Clothing Retail Industry

Question: Discuss about the Growth of Clothing Retail Industry. Answer: Introduction: The clothing industry in Australia is one of the main sectors in retail trade. The clothing and apparel industry has faced a lot of difficulty in the previous years in Australia. The industry however has seen a little growth in the year 2015. The clothing and foot ware industry depends on a lot of factors like the fashion trends, customers choice and others (Okonkwo 2016). In the past few years, the foreign clothing retail companies are also entering the Australian market for trade. As a result, the indigenous companies are facing problems (Chen and Li 2016). The clothing industry has started using the new technologies like the online shopping, online marketing, use of digital media and others. This has improved the business of the clothing market of Australia. The clothing industry in Australia is still in a maturing state (Ewing 2014). The challenges that were faced in the clothing industry are due to the changes in the economic condition of the people of the country. The consumers became aware in spending due to the changes in the economic conditions (Casidy 2012). The growth of the Australian clothing industry is being studied in this research. The main factors that affect the growth of clothing industry will be discussed in this research work. The proposal gives an idea about the methods of data collection and the analysis of such data. The possible interpretation of the results of analysis of data is given in this proposal. The main problem statement in this research is to analyze the growth of clothing industry in Australia and the factors behind such growth. Literature review: The clothing retail industry in Australia is one of the major retail sectors of the country. The sector contributes a large portion o the GDP of the country. The past few years this sector however has not seen much growth. The change in economy of the country has resulted in the decline of this industry (Fry 2013). Due to inflation and other economic factors the consumers has become cautious about spending. The indigenous companies are also facing competition from the foreign companies. The foreign companies are entering into the Australian market over the last few years. All these factors have led to the decline of this industry (Gardetti and Torres 2013). The clothing industry can be classified into many different sectors such as the clothing, fashionable apparels, apparels and footwear and others. The fashion is a very important factor in the apparel industry. The company that has a fashion line is more preferable than the ordinary companies. The fashion line has led to the growth of companies like Nike, Adidas and others. These companies mostly trade in sports goods and apparels. The brand value of the companies is also an important factor for the growth of these industries (Singleton 2013). There are more than 40 popular clothing companies in Australia. The fashion sense o the customer is one of the driving forces behind the growth of this industry. The customer of these popular brands like Nike is mostly college goers. The generation Y has a strong sense of fashion. The fashion sense of the customer is changing day by day. The foreign companies are finding advantage for this change. The foreign companies could expand their busines s in the Australian market owing to these changes (Brooks 2013). The country Australia does not have many large fashion companies. There are only two branded fashion companies in the country namely Billabong and Rip Curl. The company Billabong accounts for 1.5 billion Australian dollars while the company Rip Curl accounts for almost 884 million Australian dollars. The fashion industry of Australia contributes more than 75000 Australian dollars to the GDP of the country. The total employment in the clothing, textile and foot ware industry of Australia is 37000 (Mohan Kathuria 2013). The fitness and athletics clothing industry also forms a part of the clothing industry of Australia. The fitness and athletic clothing industry however has shown a growth over the years. The main reason for the growth of this industry is the changing consumer behavior. The consumers have started using gym clothes due to comfort in these clothes. There is a high demand of gym clothing in the Australian market (Jegethesan, Sneddon and Soutar 2012). The management of supply chain has also facilitated the growth of these industries. The foreign companies like H M COS are expanding their territories in Australia. The company COS has opened a store in Sydney in the year 2014. There is no such leading company in foot ware and apparel business in Australia. The South African company MRP has entered Australian market in the year 2015 (Robinson and Hsieh 2016). The sector has shown a marginal improvement in the year 2015. The customers demand for the latest designs has been increased in the present time. The clothing industry has also improved due to digitalization. The use of social media sites has also led to the growth of this sector of industry. The concepts of online advertisement, online shopping has greatly benefitted the industry (Brooks and Simon 2012). Variables and hypothesis: The main variables in this research work are the total profits generated by the clothing retail industry, the number of indigenous companies in the industry, the foreign companies that are entering in the industry, the employment status in this industry, the contribution of the industry to the GDP of the country and others. The profit of the industry is taken as the dependent variable and the other variables as the independent variable. The hypotheses of the research work are as follows: H01: The clothing retail industry has not shown any major changes over the years. H11: The clothing retail industry has shown a major change in growth over the years. The variable of profit of the companies is measured in terms of the Australian dollars. The GDP of the country, the numbers of companies that are operating in the country, the employment status of the industry are all obtained for the whole country. Since this figures are quite large, these figures are associated with errors. There is no such constraint involved in doing the research work. Research design and methodology: The research involves qualitative method of study. The data collected for the research work is secondary data. The secondary data about the number of people involved in clothing retail industry, employment status of the industry, the impact of the industry to the economy of the country and others are obtained from the official websites and other websites. The data has been collected for a particular span of time. The data can be collected for a period of 10 years. There is some ethics related to any kind of research. The researcher cannot forget the ethical issues while doing the research work. The researcher has not violated the ethics in this research work. The researcher has obtained the data from the websites and other sources ethically. The places where the data are not available, the researcher has paid to obtain the data. The researcher has not taken any unethical measures such as hacking or others to obtain the data. The data obtained for the purpose of the research is secondary data. Therefore, the data is not subjected any kind of sampling procedures. However, the data has been collected for a particular span of time. Data analysis: The analysis of the data so collected is carried out with the help of different statistical tools and techniques. The measures of descriptive statistics have been calculated for the variables. The mean, median, standard deviation, variance, range and others has been calculated for the study. A comparison among the previous and past year figures will help to understand the growth of the industry. A time series analysis can be performed to know about the growth of this sector. The values of the profit from this sector can be plotted along with time. An increasing trend in the values will help to know that the dataset has an increasing trend. A regression analysis can also be performed by taking the profit as the dependent variable and the other variables such as the GDP of the country, employment status of this sector, number of firms in this sector and others as independent variable. A significant value of the beta co efficient of the regression model will explain that the variable ha s an impact on the profit of this sector. Conclusion The research will be carried out to know about the condition of the clothing retail industry in Australia. The research will point out the problems faced by the clothing retail industry in the present years. The possible remedy to these problems will also be discussed in this research. The analysis and conclusions from the research will help to take a close look into the problems faced by clothing retail industry. The proposal points out the problems in the particular sector of research. An extensive literature review has been conducted to know about the problems of the clothing retail industry. The methods of data collection and the analysis of the data are also given in this proposal. References: Brooks, A. and Simon, D., 2012. 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