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Burlington Coat Factory Case Analysis

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Burlington Coat Factory, as known as Burlington, is an American discount department stores headquartered in Florence, New Jersey started on 1972. Today, Burlington is one of the largest off price department retailers in the United States.
Number of Stores As of 2017, there are total 592 stores in 45 states and Puerto Rico. Although Burlington was started in New Jersey, California has the most stores, which is 65 stores (Burlington Stores, Inc., 2017). And furthermore, 41 out of 65 stores are located in Southern California. Burlington also tries to expand new stores up to 1000 stores at satisfactory locations as a long-term goal.
Brand Image In 1972, Burlington Coat Factory primarily sold coats, but the concept has developed until now. Today, they sell the latest designer clothing, shoes, accessories, and home furnishings for all family members. They also try to offer current trend, high quality, and discount prices up to 65% (burlingtoncoatfactory.com, n.d.). Although they offer discount prices and trendy designer merchandises, not many people are shopping at Burlington compared to other retailers (nrf.com, 2016). One main reason is location and shopping experience. There are only few stores, so it is inconvenient for customers. Shopping experience at discount store would be not good too. Wal-Mart customers were complaining about dirty environment, empty shelves, and poor customer service (Irwin, 2016). Also, Ross customers were unhappy with unorganized aisles with damaged merchandises (Peterson, 2017). Visual merchandise and infrastructure are not organized enough since discount stores are selling off price items and outdated fashion items. Therefore, many people are thinking of Burlington store as an unorganized store that has low quality items. Burlington also received a bad brand image on 2015 because of their wrong promotion. They had been sued for allegedly misrepresenting the comparison prices and deceived customers to believe they were saving more than actual value. Thus, many customers couldn’t believe Burlington’s price and promotion after that issue (Zinck, 2015).
Target Markets According to Burlington’s 2017 Annual Report, they are targeting all genders and all ages, but their main customer

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