Gap Admits That Brand Operation Is A Problem But Has Nothing To Do With Product Design And Quality.

 Gap always regards China. market One of its breakthrough points is to further open up online and offline competition for young consumers.

As the sales of Gap brand of American Apparel Group have not been improved, the original CEO Jeff Kirwan has left early this year.

A few days ago, Gap group CEO Art Peck admitted at the annual general meeting that there were problems in the operation of Gap brand, which led to a slow recovery in the sales performance of the brand, but emphasized that it had nothing to do with product design and quality.

According to Gap's annual results in fiscal year 2017, net profit rose by 25.4% to $848 million, and sales increased by 2.2% to $15 billion 860 million.

The United States is still the main group of Gap. market Last year, sales in the region rose 4.8% to 12 billion 568 million US dollars, or 80% of total sales. Asian markets, including China, recorded a 18.2% decline to 1 billion 263 million US dollars last year, accounting for 8% of total sales.

According to the brand, its Gap brand sales decreased by 2.5% to 5 billion 318 million US dollars year-on-year, while the fourth quarter revenue recorded an increase of 1.7% to 1 billion 606 million US dollars; Old Navy year-on-year sales rose 6.2% to 7 billion 238 million US dollars in the same period, fourth quarter income rose by 12.6% to 2 billion 160 million yuan in the same period; Banana Republic year-on-year sales decreased by 3.6% to $3.6%, and the quarterly revenue rose to $US. There is no doubt that the performance of Old Navy continues to rise, to some extent, helped the group to produce a satisfactory spancript.

Art Peck believes that Old Navy has become one of the fastest growing American apparel brands. Clear brand image and clear positioning make Old Navy's performance exceed expectations.

According to Art Peck, The main problem of Gap is still the product. The group is continually improving its brand, but with little success, especially the strong passenger flow and low conversion rate. This is particularly frustrating. He said, Women's wear Some knitted and skirt products performed well, but men's clothes were very struggling. The younger generation likes fashion products, but the traditional style of Gap is simple and natural. Gap needs further grope for how to balance the two issues. There are more and more fast fashion brands focusing on young consumer groups, and Gap's behavior is just following other brands' footsteps, so that Gap's target customers are hard to be captured.

Art Peck further revealed that the group's goal this year is still to close 200 stores, but plans to add 60 Old Navy stores.

As of the end of fiscal year 2017, Gap group has 3594 stores in the world. Among them, 56 stores were added in the fourth quarter, but 101 stores were closed, and 55 stores were closed.

In view of the fact that Asia has become the second largest market in the Gap group after the US, Gap has always regarded the Chinese market as one of its breakthrough points, trying to further open up online and offline competition for young consumers.

In July 2017, Gap launched a series of joint design with WeChat, which has aroused heated debate. In August 25, 2017, Gap China's largest flagship store opened in Nanjing West Road 863. In September 30, 2017, Gap made its debut in mainland China's first independent children's clothing store in Yintai City, West Lake, Hangzhou.

At the same time, Xun Zhou and Jing Bairan were invited to be spokesmen. However, this still can not stop the fact that the performance is declining. Recently, Gap also raised concerns over the issue of "the deletion of the map of China" by the T-shirt, although GAP apologized on the night by official micro-blog, and said that the T-shirt system was involved in "individual overseas". market On sale, the product has been withdrawn from the Chinese market and destroyed, but it has caused widespread condemnation from netizens.

Obviously, in the Chinese market, there are still many ways to go after the Gap who plays catch-up.