Mango's winning strategy

Among the top mass-market brands to watch, Mango is the youngest — and most promising — competitor. Established in 1984 in Palau-solità I Plegamans, Catalonia, Spain, by brothers Isak and Nahman Andic, the brand is a family-owned business that generated revenue up to €1,82bn in 2020 — despite the COVID-19 crisis. 

A denim-dedicated brand? 

Mango is well-known for its broad offering of various accessories. Indeed, compared with its main competitors, Zara and H&M, the Spanish brand dedicates more than a fifth of its assortment to the category. 

On a side note, this strategy is commonplace. Indeed, accessories represent the best way to increase pieces-per-receipt, as well as the average basket value, and do not require as much display space as clothing. 

Then, when we take a step back to look at the big picture, Mango’s assortment mix does not seem to differ much from its competitors, with one exception: Denim. 

It is noteworthy to mention that 12,5% of Mango’s assortment is dedicated to jeans. Why does Mango focus so much on denim? Is it an over-performing category that requires a lot of focus to justify the high assortment share? Or is it an over-represented category? 

Thanks to Retviews latest competitive benchmark report, retailers can easily spot over-or under-represented categories.

What is behind Mango’s sustainable collection? 

Mango is among the signatories of the G7 fashion pact, and a member of the Better Cotton Initiative and has upped its communication surrounding sustainability to help spread awareness to its consumers about this growing topic in the industry. 

According to a press release from the Spanish brand, 79% of Mango’s assortment is already sold under its sustainable collection, “Mango Committed.” This is a more earth-friendly label similar to the “Conscious” line from H&M and “Join Life” from Inditex brands. 

However, when we take a look at all of the new arrivals for 2021, only 9% fall under the sustainable label. This represents a 70% difference compared to the statement in the brand’s press release.

Thanks to Retviews artificial intelligence, it’s possible to get this high-level information based on retailers’ websites and the information they disclose. From this info, we can determine that the disconnect between Mango’s statements on sustainability and actual sustainable-article share could be because the Spanish brand does not label its “Mango Committed” articles efficiently yet on its website. 

2020 was a high-discount year for Mango

Mango typically does not discount much during the year, choosing to instead focus on the general end-of-season sales promotions. However, during the COVID-19 peaks in March-May 2020, the Spanish brand offered quite a few promotions — such as 20% off all articles on their entire website. 

Therefore, it had an impact on Mango’s overall strategy in terms of discount share and average discount. We observe that in 2020, Mango discounted more articles than Zara and H&M, and at a higher discount rate. With the understanding that Mango has a smaller assortment (in numbers of articles) compared to its competitors, will Mango’s strategy change in 2021? 

Is Mango really more expensive than its competitors? 

When we think about Mango, affordability typically isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, like with similar brands like H&M or Zara. However, when we look at Mango pricing strategy, the reality is different. 

Mango‘s most frequent price for apparel is actually the same as Zara’s. Consumers should — and probably already do — think of Mango as a close competitor to Zara. 

But when we look at Mango’s average price, we see that it’s pretty similar to Inditex’s more expensive brand, Massimo Dutti. To assess the average price of different brands, check the price indicators of your competitive environment on your Retviews interface. 

A bright future for the Spanish brand

The Covid-19 crisis showed Mango’s resilience. The company was still able to generate billions of euros in turnover in 2020. It also proved its ability to evolve digitally with its investment in e-commerce. 

Part of Mango’s strategy has been to develop third-party partnerships. For instance, their arrangement with Intimissimi on its website. The strategy allows Mango to widen the offerings on its e-commerce platform.

Then Mango continues to invest in the future of fashion: sustainability.  It is an ongoing process, but so far, Mango’s commitments look promising.