North-East shoppers sounded out on designer gear

Feb 4 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

AN independent market research firm has been finding out whether North-East shoppers want to buy high street versions of designs by David Emanuel – famed for co-designing Princess Diana’s iconic wedding dress.

Clothing chain Bonmarché wants to attract young customers using designers like Emanual and turned to Newcastle-based Explain Research to find out whether its campaign was working. Explain, which was set up in 1993 and uses market research to help its clients develop new brands, is aiming to boost its turnover by 50% this year as it expands into Yorkshire, the Midlands and Scotland.

It’s clients include Asda and companies in the financial and utilities sector, in addition to Bonmarché, which focuses on the value end of the womenswear market. Explain chief executive David Shiel said: “Retailers at the low ticket price end of the market, such as Primark, have posted good results but that’s partly down to understanding exactly what their customer base wants. Smart retailers need accurate customer behaviour and motivation data, and the best way to gather that is to go direct to the customer and ask what they think.

“Brand expansion like this is a key to retail success, and we recently helped Asda to launch a new financial services arm on the back of research that showed customers saw the supermarket chain as synonymous with low prices, value for money and being family-friendly – all of which reinforced its decision to re-brand appropriately.”

Katherine Scott, marketing manager of Bonmarché, said the business was delighted with Explain’s work. She added: “One of Explain’s key findings was that our regular clients felt the new range to be fashionable and up to date, but not too fashionable for the average Bonmarché customer.”