A marketing plan is an overall business plan written for the purpose of describing the current market position of a business. The marketing plan that andy developed in 1998 does have some problems, Firstly they may have a problem trying to maintain the existing market share for over 35's whilst trying to increase market share for under 25's. In 1988 one of ricks's objectives was to increase market share among males aged 35 and over, working within that guideline rick would of started to establish a reputation for his target audience, people would would of known that his business only catered for over 35's and younger males would have gone elsewhere. When andy and ying came into the business they wanted to make it appeal to younger males , which they succeeded to do , as within 2 years the majority of their sales were from males aged 25 and under. As a result of this the customer base that rick built up could've of felt threatened and neglected and ultimately could've found somewhere else to shop. It would be hard for Rick , Andy and Ying to try and balance the two customer bases out , it would depend on the type of clothing the two customer bases like , if they are interested in similar types of clothing they would be able to maintain them both as it would be easier to satisfy both without spending extra money. It also depends on competitors actions , their plan to balance their market share between two customer bases could fail if a clothes company like Next or Burton decide to focus their clothing line specifically on either over 35's or under 25's because either one of the customers bases would be getting more attention from a company like Next or Burton rather than having to share the attention from Carters. Another problem that the Carters might have in implementing their marketing plan is that opening a store every year for the next five years seems slightly unrealistic mainly due to the cost of things. Although the sales rap