I have chosen River Island as it is one of the most recognisable brands in the retail fashion industry offering numerous clothing lines and is one of the current market leaders. Taking recent data from our group presentation when researching the Growth of Specialist UK Clothing Retailers (2011-2015), River Island showed a percentage of 23.4% growth from 2011 to 2015. From (Mintel, 2016) River Island have also maintained their market share, which is currently 1.6%. This is due to them focusing on key market trends and keeping up with consumer tastes. River Island did also report flat sales in 2015 but decided to focus on investing profits back into the business to drive growth, (Armstrong, 2016) this explains why they are going to continue to grow in the 2017 year with new plans to bring numerous new clothing ranges to market.

An external factor that will effect River Island is that the retail fashion market is highly competitive and not dominated by one or more company, unlike other markets. This means that there is intense competition in the market as all the retailers are in a battle to be different. (Bush, 2016) From previous research, the market shares are spread evenly among leading fashion brands such as Next, H&M, Zara and the Arcadia Group. No retailers are significantly ahead of their competitors. From this, I believe that Zara and Topshop are River Island’s biggest threats. Zara in particular as clothing retailers are increasingly competing to introduce new products and trends to retail stores more rapidly than their rivals do to meet consumer demands. Zara is one of the fastest companies to turn around the latest trends with clothes produced and reaching stores within 2-3 weeks and because of this have become one of the UK’s fastest growing retailers due to its fast fashion approach and its flexibility in terms of production. (Stevenson, 2015) This could be a threat for River Island as even though they do put out new stock in their stores frequently their focus is on restocking their best selling items whereas their competitors have new stock and designs coming to store all the time. (The Student Room, 2015)

Another competitor H&M is currently focusing on international expansion, in 2016, H&M planned to open 425 new stores, which means they are entering new markets in New Zealand, Cyprus and Puerto Rico. (Sourcing Journal, 2016) However, the River Island retail brand has only 300 stores, 40 of which are loca