4Ps of Bata’s Company

Product

Bata was founded in 1984 by Tomas Bata (Bata, 2017), and over the years they
produce well-designed products which they put heavy focus on durability and price.
People also heavily rely upon Bata due to the fact that the people could obtain good
quality products especially shoes, which owes to its history of supplying good quality
shoes to military in World War I. This makes people to have much expectations on
getting the same quality of shoes which they can currently obtain. Until now, people
are still looking for cheaper alternatives and Bata had consistently maintained the
quality of their products and their products were also sold in reasonable prices. Not only
that, there is always have been an issue with Indian customers which they are very
sensitive to prices and ‘Bata’ has successfully made it according to their requirement
by implementing its strategy of obtaining great quality products with low set of prices
(MBA Skool, 2011). Due to that, Bata has achieved a steady growth and the consistent
expansion in medium scale market.

Bata has become one of the most well-known brand in shoes industry around
the globe. Obviously, shoes are the main product of Bata and they provide a wide
variety of types, which are formal shoes, men and women’s footwear, sandals, sport
shoes, school shoes, safety shoes and boots, and other accessories. Bata itself produces
formal shoes, moreover it also came out with a brand called Bata Comfit, which mainly
produces sandals. Hush puppies had also tied up with Bata in offering wide quality
range of shoes from Hush puppies and this eventually gives Bata a refreshing air to its
brand value. Furthermore, Bata had many brands under it, which are B-First,
Bubblegummers, Mocassino, Ambassador, Marie Claire, North Star, Scholl, Power,
Weinbrenner, etc. Bata also provide quality shoes that focus on three main points which
are breathing, absorption, and flexibility. Breathing refers to shoes that are designed to
make users feel comfortable to wear them. Absorption was mentioned because their
shoes are made out of specific materials called waterproof membrane, which provide
good water resistance to the shoes (Bata, 2017). Bata shoes also provide great flexibility
as no matter how u bend or squeeze them, they remain the same shape as they used to
be. This relates to the materials used to produce Bata shoes, which are synthetic
materials, but most of their products are made out of leather. Based on all the above
statements, the implementation of product differentiation strategy and maintaining the
quality of their shoes are in fact a great success for Bata.

Price

As being one of the Most crucial part of a business, Pricing is one of the factor
which can make or break the products success. Bata earned its brand value as the Brand
for the Masses because of its unique & customer-centric pricing scheme. Bata uses a
psychological pricing scheme as their pricing strategy. They generally set the price of
their products to the nearest lower “9” digit figure of the actual price. As for an example,
if a product price is RM70, they price it RM69.90. It makes the product price look more
affordable & cheaper to the buyer.

Also, being the brand for the masses. Bata price their products in the reach of
general people. They keep their product affordable to the majority of the people through
their pricing scheme while keeping the quality intact. Thus, the thought Bata not being
able to directly target the premium market comes. But Bata have different sub-brands
to target different market niche. As example, Bata keeps its main brand “Bata”, “Bata
comfit” stick to the lower price point to target the mass market. But they also have
Higher End sub brands like “Ninno Rossy”, “North Star”, “Power” and “Hush puppies”
to target & drive the premium market where they sell the premium products in premium
prices retaining the psychological pricing scheme.

Bata keeps its product line & range of prices very categorized. Generally, the
price segmentations are in 3 major segments which are For Men, Women & Kids.
Where they have individual sub-brands to maintain specific price ranges & offering
premium & for the masses.

As such, they offer Kids sandals & school shoes for as low as RM19.99. But
they also offer premium products like Hush Puppies Branded fancy shoes which prices
as much as RM269. Same goes for Men & Women segment where Bata Comfit or Bata
sub-brands offer shoes from as low as RM21.99 & The Premium product line such as
North star, Power & Ninno Rossi offers premium product in Premium price.

Place

Among 4Ps in marketing, place is an important element. Place means how the
company makes the products being easily accessible to the target customers. For Bata,
there are enormous stores in Malaysia. In facts, Bata has a huge market all over
Malaysia. There are more around 228 stores which concluding City, Family, Footin’
and Primavera stores. All of the stores are differentiated by its range of merchandise.
For instance, Primavera Stores are especially for high and middle income group of
people, because there are all shoes which are fashionable and good design in the stores.
Besides that, Footin’s Stores provide the affordable shoes, these are more suitable for
middle to low income group. Furthermore, Wholesale Division also being operated to
serve the independent dealers. Bata has distributed the stores as many as possible to
enable customers purchasing the products easily and according to their preferences.

Not only in Malaysia, Bata has stores and franchises all over the world. Bata
company’s coverage is wide and huge. It is an established brand with strong presence
in 70 countries and 5000 stores worldwide (Bata, 2017). Bata has developed its
business around globe, for example Algeria, Canada and Yemen, and they are still
working on the development of this portal.

Bata is a successful shoes manufacturer and retailer. It has operated 27 production

facilities across 20 countries (Research&Development, 2016). Actually, Bata is
manufacturing their products by their own manufacturing facilities primarily. All
manufacturing facilities production is 1005 water-based adhesive. Apart from that, ISO
9000 has been given to the most of the Bata’s production, it has proved the quality of
the company. Bata Shoe Company Limited is the registered Bata company for Malaysia.
Bata Berhad in Klang was operated in 1980, and it is manufacturing, retail and export
company. There are also branch factories which are launched in Seremban and Kapar
(Bata’s World, 2018).
Promotion

Promotion plays a vital role in marketing process which convinces and persuades
customers on a product. The promotion mix is the specific blend of promotion tools
that the company uses to persuasively communicate customer value and build customer
relationships. (Kotler et al. 2010) It is the way to capture current customer about the
product’s benefits. Marketers also create awareness of new customer through
promotion. Even though Bata company is a well-known company, it still requires
promotion as part of marketing strategies to target their customer. Advertising, sales
promotion and loyalty program are some of the promotion methods of Bata company
to grab customer’s interest. Promotion activities can be divided into two categories
which were seasonal and non-seasonal. During the seasonal sale, Bata came out with
“Back to school” promotion which starts in November of every year. This promotion
Is targeting students from kids to teenagers. Not only that, price discount scheme is
released on holidays such as Labour Day, National Day and Year End Sale (YES).
Festival sale, for example, latest promotion for Chinese New Year 2018, a customer
who spends RM128 and above will receive RM18 e-voucher, wristlet as a gift and red
packets. Whenever a new Bata store is open up, it will have opening store promotion.
Discounted shoes at mega shoe fair are also major promotional activities and held a few
times in every year.

In this science of communication, digital marketing is the main concern of Bata

company. They are introducing their new arrivals through official Bata website, social
media and newspaper. Bata has a specific strategy to promote their products through
wide diversification of products which meet the requirement of the different segment
of society. Hence an insight into the marketing mix of Bata has clearly shown. If you
ever noticed on the page of Bata website, it has a subscribe button at the bottom as part
of sales advertising program. Once online user put in their email, they will be updated
with promotion activities and latest news.

Bata company has created loyalty program through Bata Club membership card,
which is free and lifetime membership. Once customer registered as a member, they
will receive an e-voucher for next purchase. Bata’s member also has a special price for
products from Bata company and every RM 1 spent will be converted to 1 points in the
card. Points accumulated can be used as voucher in future. A consumer may become a
frequent buyer of a retailer if the company provide great loyalty program. Besides,
providing after-sale service is part of the promotional strategy that concerns customer
satisfaction. If customers are unsatisfied with the item bought, they can get a return
request in any Bata stores in 7 days