The 7 P's - P1

Price - In marketing price is about setting a price that serves the customers well and provides the business with a profit. The
price is the set amount of money that customers have to pay in order to purchase the goods they want to. It is the amount that businesses charge for their products but can change so it’s not a fixed price. Businesses have to make sure they charge the right amount of money for the right things. So if something doest need to be expensive, businesses have to make sure they charge an amount that customers are willing to pay for it. Businesses have to also make sure they know what price their competitors are selling their products for because they wouldn't want to be selling their products to cheap or far too expensive. Price is a very important factor because it’s a way of attracting customers, but it’s only if the business is selling their products at the right price which customers are happy with.
ASOS (Price) - ASOS keep their prices at a very standard rate but some of their products are expensive as they are known for selling clothes that celebrities have worn so they can’t sell them at a cheap price. Even though they are not a cheap place to shop at they have times where they offer customers discounts on many of their products. For example they might have 10% off or 20% and even half the price. All these products will be the ones that are not for the current season; therefore to get rid of them ASOS put them on discount as it gets customers buying them. ASOS keep their prices depending on what the product is, so if its worn by someone well known, than ASOS will charge their customers a high price for it because they know customer would want to have it no matter what even if the pricing is high, that's how they are successful as a business because they earn a lot of revenue.

Product - The product is the most important thing for a business as that is what decides if they are making a loss or a profit, because the more products they sell the more revenue they are making. A product needs to be very eye catching and something new and different altogether in the market to be able to sell properly. That is the reason why over time businesses decide to re-develop their existing product to give it a new meaning which hopefully attracts new customers. Another important factor of the product is its appearance and it has to be almost perfect so it can sell right and just how the business thought it will. The way the product is packaged and branded also matters as well because many customers look at a products brand and the way its packaged in order to decide if they should buy it or not. Also many customers think that if a product is well packaged and branded it is likely to be good because of its appearance, that's why businesses focus on the way their product looks from the outside as well as the inside.
ASOS (Product) - ASOS have a collection of products available to their customers, all something that's related to celebrities. At ASOS you can find a variety of products for both men and women. They also sell beauty products as well as accessories. ASOS have grown rapidly and have begun to sell clothes for children and babies. ASOS have designed their website well and have kept all the products under categories so it’s easier to see for the user. This means they have separated the women and men section, so it’s not much of a problem and they have also separated accessories and their beauty products. If you go to the ASOS website at the top they show you what sort of products they have available, for example women, men, designer, beauty and kids. From this we can see that ASOS have a wide range of products for their customers, overall they have over 100 different brands that customers can choose from.

Promotion - Promotion is all about the way businesses decide to advertise their business, products, services or whatever they have to offer to their customers. There are many different types of ways a business can advertise their products, this includes, print advertisements (newspapers, magazines, posters, fliers) outdoor advertisements (billboards) and broadcast advertisements (television, radio, internet). Businesses try and promote all the special and unique features of their products because that's what attracts customers and over time a unique selling point is created. Through promotion businesses try and create awareness of themselves and whatever they have to offer with the hope that they will be successful in persuading and informing their customers.
ASOS (Promotion) - ASOS advertise their business and products through their own website, for instance they have a small section on their website which gives customers information about themselves, and also about what they have to offer to them. They also give a brief description about their history and how they started out, this is promotion because ASOS are promoting their business to the world, which includes their customers as well as their competitors because the website is there for anybody to use. ASOS also have a section for investors, which once again is promoting their business, but this time it focuses on a group of people known as investors. These are the people that would want to invest with ASOS and be a part of them. Their website is packed with information about their products and what’s good about each and every one of them. This way they are promoting their products to the people who are browsing through their website. Customers can be a part of ASOS because once they make a purchase from them they have to give their email address and once ASOS have gathered this information they send various emails to their customers keeping them informed about any new products they have in stock and about anything new that's happening at ASOS. People can forward these emails to other people in their contact list so it’s promoting ASOS to other people making more and more people aware of them.

Place - In marketing place is all about making your product accessible to your customers/consumers. Businesses will need to think carefully about the place they decide to locate their business at, because they have to locate it at a place where it’s easy for their customers to get hold of their goods or service. Location is very important, and every business has to think about many different things because they can decide where to situate their business at. For example they have to think about, car park, the way the place looks (clean, tidy), whether it’s local or not, if their competitors are close enough. After thinking about all these things and more is when they come to a conclusion.
ASOS (Place) - ASOS are an online business and only function from there. This means they do not have any shops which customer can visit and purchase their goods. ASOS operate from a warehouse in which they store all their stock. But they do have a headquarter that is situated in London, England, UK. This is the online place ASOS can be found at since they do not operate from shops or any other buildings apart from their warehouse.

People - Every business must have the right people working for them in order for it to run properly. This includes recruiting the right staff and providing them with appropriate training so that they can deliver the right service to customers. Everyone working for the business known as the staff, should also have the right interpersonal skills and service knowledge so that they can provide all their customers with the service they should and what they are paying them for. In the marketing mix the people are the employees that work for the organisation, they must have certain skills and manners because they must give their 100% at all times and try to make the business succeed at all times.

ASOS (People) - ASOS employee many people because they want their business to run properly. In total they have 1000 employees working for them. ASOS need specialised people working for them that can look after the website and make changes whenever they need to. This includes adding new things as well as removing certain out of date information that is not needed any more. For this to happen ASOS would need to recruit specialised people who already have the right training. They must also have people who can deal with customer complaints and try to sort them out. For this to happen ASOS must employee people that will make things better for themselves as well as the customers because they are very important people for the business, and they also have to make sure that the customer walks away happy, because happy customers will always come back. The bigger the business the more people are needed to manage everything, but as ASOS operate from online only, they need more specialised staff with the right training.

Process - This is the process by which the product is either manufactured or passed on to the final user (customer). It includes all the stages that are followed for this procedure to work out. This includes the delivery service if required.
ASOS (Process) - The process that takes place at ASOS is completely different to the process that customers would have to go through if they went to a shop. As ASOS is an online business, customers would have to visit their website to shop at them, and the procedure they have to follow to make purchases is completely different to the procedure they have to follow elsewhere. For starters customers shopping at ASOS can only see the product they cannot touch it or try it on as everything is seen through the computer screen. The payment methods are done by using a credit card just like you can do at a shop but the only different is that you would have to do everything yourself with no help. Once you have made a purchase with ASOS you will have to wait until the delivery comes through the post.

Physical Evidence - This section of the marketing mix is all about making sure that businesses take care of the physical appearance of their business making sure it looks as friendly as possible. Businesses also have to make sure that where their customers go to purchase their goods looks welcoming as it reflects the businesses status. If customers found the place to be very clean, tidy, welcoming and friendly with a nice atmosphere they would most likely go back and be part of it again. On the other hand if they walk into a shop floor with it being messy and no friendly appearance to it, they won’t really go back to that sort of place, instead they would want to go elsewhere. This way the business is not making any profit at all. These shows how important it is for businesses to make their shops, buildings or where ever they operate from a nice, clean and well decorated place.
ASOS (Physical Evidence) - ASOS do not have a building where customers can go to shop, so they don't really need to worry about this section of the marketing mix. But they do have headquarters that can be found in London, which they have managed very well, as that's the place they mainly operate from because that's the only building found to be with them excluding their warehouse. On the other hand ASOS have a website which they have to maintain instead. They have done this really well because their website is well designed, everything is where it should be which means nothing is out of place, they have made it very colourful with videos and images, they have sound once videos are being played. ASOS have recently received a complete overhaul in March 2009, and they have introduced many new things to the website improving it more.