Portobello Road: Place & Product

Credit: Harlan Spotts

Portobello Road: Place & Product

Portobello Road is located conveniently between Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill Gate tube stations in London. Therefore giving shoppers ease of access to shop Portobello Road from end to end and swiftly make their way back onto the tube. The convenience of the locations of these two tube stations, being placed at either end of the Portobello Market stretch, helps to ease the stress of the shopping process. If there was only one station in the vicinity of Portobello Road, people wouldn’t be bothered to walk the entire stretch of Portobello Road to see all that the market has to offer just to walk back down again. This would put some vendors at a huge disadvantage because they wouldn’t be experiencing as much traffic as other vendors would, if there was only one station. Another advantage of Portobello Road is that frequent shopper can take advantage of the terrain. What I am referring to is the fact the Portobello Road has a slight grade, as it sits on a hill. Frequent visitors of Portobello Road will find that if they disembark at the Ladbroke Grove station and make their way down (south) Portobello Road they will find much more ease and effectiveness when shopping. Reason being that people do not like to exert a lot of energy when it comes to shopping. Consumers that disembark at Notting Hill Gate and want to make their way up Portobello Road will tend to be more tired because their shopping will take them uphill. A tired customer will not be a happy customer, and so I feel that vendors will be disadvantaged by these customers as they may not spend as much time at their stands. I feel as though there should be suggestions for visitors of Portobello Road to start their shopping at the northernmost point of Portobello Road and make their way south (downhill) in order to experience a more pleasurable shopping experience. As I walked along Portobello Road and surveyed the products for sale, I noticed that there were a lot of products that didn't have brand names. I feel that the reason for this is that the market in which the vendors shop in isn't the typical manufacturer or private label brand that you would find in your local retailer. Most channels of distribution deal with agents/brokers that negotiate the trade between the manufacturer and the wholesaler/retailer. However, in the case of all the vendors in the Portobello Market the middleman (the agent/broker) is cut out. The vendors must buy directly from the manufacturer in order to be able to afford the products that they buy. This maximizes on efficiency, because there are fewer transactions, and lowers the cost. The costs are lowered not only for the vendors, but are passed onto the customers of the Portobello Market. Most of the products can be considered to be knock-off as the quality of the items are lower and in the end you get what you pay for. Vendors aren't going to be able to buy from your typical merchandiser because they wouldn't be able to afford it, especially since they can't buy in volume. There must be second rate and third rate manufacturers that these vendors order from allowing them to afford to purchase a bulk of items to sell at the Portobello Market.

There is a large array of products that consumers can select from when they visit Portobello Road. From material goods such as antiques, to household essentials, to food, people can find it on Portobello Road. Since there is such a large selection of products in the Portobello market, consumers appreciate that they have high chances of finding what they want. There are two types of customers that shop for products in the marketplace (businesses and consumers) and you will not find businesses shopping on Portobello Road. All the customers shopping on Portobello Road are consumers, meaning that they use the products that they buy for themselves. Most of the products offered by vendors on Portobello Road are convenience items. Glasses, watches, shoes, purses, souvenirs make up a majority of the products found in the Portobello Market. A lot of the products are homogeneous and with these products, the customer is in control as vendors will compete to offer the lowest price in order to generate business for themselves. The customers shopping at Portobello Market know that they aren't getting the highest quality product, but the prices are so low they can risk making purchases.

Portobello Road: Promotion

Portobello Road: Promotion


Buy 15 postcards for £2! Buy 4 pastries for £2! Promotions, they are all over Portobello Road and people love it. Is there not a better feeling than getting more for your dollar? Promotions seem to drive Portobello Road. Forget about the already low prices that vendors start their products at, but sales on Portobello Road make the average consumer feel rich. Part of offering deals is to give the customer the feeling that their purchasing power parity is even greater from what they originally perceive, hence influencing customers to buy more. Vendors would like to get rid of their product and so promotions are the best way to clear their inventories. Promotions offer the consumers incentives to buy and in a way it is a win-win situation. The customer is happy because they got what they wanted and more at a good price and the vendor is able to finish out the day with a lot less inventory from what they started out with. All of the selling is done person-to-person when making a purchase on Portobello Road and this allows customers to have more of a relationship with vendors. Sometimes customers can influence vendors by bargaining in order to get what they want at the prices they want. Another advantage for the vendors doing business on Portobello Road is that they do not have to think about spending even a fraction of what regular businesses spend on advertising. They do not have to create a large advertising campaign for the year and in fact they don’t have to worry too much about advertising at all. In a way, the vendors on Portobello Road run on a pull strategy, minus the advertising issues that other businesses have to strategize about. The day that I went to Portobello Road, the streets were crowded with people just looking to buy from the various vendors. Vendors on Portobello Road know that customers are going to be coming to them every weekend and they don’t even have to spend any money on advertising. I saw vendors that displayed their prices with an Expo marker on cardboard. All that the vendors have to worry about is making sure that they have a supply of goods to sell. Since the vendors know that the market will be flooded with potential customers they put their efforts into luring the people to spend money at their stand instead of the competitors’ with promotions.  

Credit: Dr. Harlan Spotts

Portobello Road: Prices

The Prices of Portobello Road

On Portobello Road one can walk down the street and purchase an umbrella for £5 . Walk further along and you will find that at another vendor you can find the same exact umbrella for £2. On Portobello Road all sales are final so there is no point in going back to return your £5 umbrella to get the same exact one at £2. This scenario sums up the level of competition on Portobello Road. You have so many vendors, most selling the same exact items, but the prices always seem to vary. Since there is a vast amount of competition, vendors have to undercut the vendor from up the street in order to sell their product. The goal for these vendors is to clear out as much of their products they have by the end of the day while still making a decent profit. As there are many vendors selling identical items at similar prices, some of the vendors decide to take blow in their sales. The two different strategies in play between the vendors are price skimming and penetration. Vendors will aim to sell a high volume of merchandise, by lowering their prices, rather than trying to increase their sales margin only to have their merchandise collect dust all day. There is always the possibility for vendors, within close proximity of each other, to collaborate to set prices high in order to maximize on sales profits. This is an example of price fixing and it is illegal. In the corporate world this collaboration would be punished. However I do not think that there is much regulation of prices on Portobello Road. If vendors, that have agreed to collaborate on a certain price, decide that they no long want to participate and lower their prices; (undercutting their competitors) there is nothing that the other vendors can do but lower their prices as well. Because price fixing is illegal, there is no way the other vendors can report any unwilling participants of their cohorts as their activities were illegal in the first place.Price fixing could be another example for why prices for similar products vary so much on Portobello Road, but in the end it all spurs from competition.  

Design Museum

Design Museum

The Design Museum consisted of two floors for exhibits. The first floor contained the theme of sports design and the second contained designs created in partnership with Swarovski. Swarovski, for those who are not aware, is in the market of selling fine crystals. Having a whole floor devoted to the Swarovski brand and using their crystals to make up the designs is a great marketing technique. Their partnership with the Design Museum will certainly help with their brand exposure. Because Swarovski is associated with luxury, as they sell crystals, they are able to increase their brand equity. In all the designed displayed at the museum, Swarovski crystals were used and the displays were absolutely beautiful. All of the exhibits were out of the ordinary, however they were interesting to look at. This is one of the advantages that Swarovski has on the consumer because being at the exhibit means that you spend a lot of time looking at their product. Although most of the designs were not practical for normal, everyday, uses, I could not help but think of how I would want to purchase Swarovski crystals as a gift to my mother. The designs help to spur awareness of how beautiful Swarovski crystals are and inhibit desire and therefore sales. This is all part of the hierarchy of effects in promoting a product. Swarovski built awareness of their product by creating and supplying their crystals for the exhibition. Interest was spurred by sponsoring and displaying a whole floor full of exhibits dedicated to the Swarovski brand. Desire was created by the beauty their crystals gave each exhibit. Lastly, Swarovski hopes to generate sales by influencing onlookers to be attracted to their product enough to go out and purchase Swarovski merchandise.  

Museum of Brands

Head and Shoulders Evolution

Museum of Brands

At the Museum of Brands there were a lot of different products on display that exemplified the evolution of a product. One product that stood out to me was Guinness. Their product has a long history as they were established in 1759. What stood out to me was that, as I made my way through the museum the Guinness brand frequently presented itself and their packaging barely changed. From the font, to the colors, to the design, it seemed to have never changed throughout time. I feel that the reason for this is the fact that the company has such a deep history and they want to be able to preserve it the best they can. Guinness is a world renowned brand and they wouldn't want to make too many changes to the aspects that surround their product-- from the taste to the packaging. In order to preserve their history and uniqueness with their consumer base, Guinness has decided not to make too many discernible changes to their brand. Guinness has attributed the fact that their consumers value the history of the company to the original design of the packing with brand equity when purchasing a product. Another product that I saw with consistent designs was Head and Shoulders. Their bottles have always had a white background and the design has generally stayed the same barring some color changes. The only color changes that were apparent were for the shampoos that had different ingredients. I feel that the Head and Shoulders brand is utilizing the brand(family) name in order to generate sales. The different versions of the Head and Shoulders shampoo represent their large product width. By utilizing the family name of Head and Shoulders, it allows the company to save money by taking advantage of their brand equity and only having to manage one brand.