Abercrombie & Fitch, The Upscale Clothing Retailer Essay

1) Why did this crisis occur? Why did Jeffries’s comments trigger such a large response?

Abercrombie & Fitch is one of the leading clothing companies in the world. They manufacture

J.Crew as an iconic brand targeting young working professional by focusing on preppy and classy look failed in identifying brand focus. Also, their business model is performing poorly in the fast-fashion industry compare to traditional competitors, with its high prices, diverging quality, and undesirable brand image. Hence, the brand perception by customers has changed and many of them prefer to purchase the discounted products rather than full-priced items.

Cue is an Australian fashion retailer, which has been in operation since 1968. The company opened its first story in Sydney, but has since opened a number of shops across the country. The retailer focuses on fashion, which is creative, innovative and youthful. The company has become one of Australia’s most loved and Marie Claire readers awarded it with the title of the Best Australian Fashion brand in 2015-2016.

Recognized for good-looking, all-American, and typically white male and female clothing models, Abercrombie & Fitch has develop into a special type of model of late-a model of asserted employment discrimination (Stephanie 2005). The clothing idol lately cleared up two private class actions and a civil action law suits by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") by consenting to compensate more than $40 million to African American, Hispanic, and Asian plaintiffs who claimed that Abercrombie discriminated against them (Stephanie 2005); Abercrombie in addition entered into a agreement with the EEOC recognized as a Consent Decree. In Gonzalez, et al. v. Abercrombie, et al., West v. Abercrombie, et al., and EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., the plaintiffs disputed that they were either restricted to low visibility, back-of-the-store kind jobs or laid off and fired on the basis of their race or ethnicity.

Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F), an American retailer that concentrates on upscale casual wear for young consumers, which was founded in Manhattan, New York City in June 4, 1892 by two young minds of David T. Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch. Beginning with a rough journey of selling sporting outfits and excursion goods such as fishing and hunting equipment, A&F had to file bankruptcy in 1977. Soon thereafter, the company was revived after Jake Oshman, owner of Oshman Sporting Goods, bought A&F in 1978. A&F was relaunched as a mail-retailer company specializing in hunting wear and novelty items, but was bought by The Limited ten years after its revival. The gradual shift to focusing on apparels for young consumers began when A&F was a subsidiary of Limited Brands, and since then, A&F has grown to become one of the largest apparel firms in the United States. In 1998, A&F launched Abercrombie Kids, targeting consumers from age 7-14, which further increases its revenue. In 1999 to early 2000s, A&F’s sales skyrocketed as it hit its zenith, by portraying A&F clothing as the “coolest thing” through billboard-winning song that compliments A&F in the lyrics, as well as other advertisements. Furthermore, A&F launched a subsidiary called Hollister to tackle similar age group of target audience but with lower income. This expansion to dominate the market of teenagers through consideration of other demographic factor, namely income, was exceptional for A&F’s revenue. Presently, A&F focused on

The root cause in the Abercrombie and Fitch case was the company’s practice was to focus their recruiting and hiring of a sales persons around their image, which was around the mantra of “an all American Classic look” and they shied away from individuals that did not fit that mold. Due to this behavior, the company was hit with a lawsuit in 2003 that alleged they violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by placing a targeted focus on their recruiting and hiring that essentially excluded or limited its minority and female workforce population (Wikipedia, 2017).

The company Abercrombie and Fitch has been sued countless times because of the rules the government has imposed on hiring and firing people. Abercrombie is trying to target attractive looking people to their line of cloths. During an interview Salon Jeffries the CEO of Abercrombie stated… his business was built around sex appeal… “He believes that good-looking people attract other good-looking people”… If a clothing line

Abercrombie & Fitch ANALYSIS REPORT Fundamentals Of Retail Design Group 03 Erik, Herr | I-Chu, Liao | Karan, Shah Kuan-Ling, Tseng | Chen-Hua, Wang ABSTRACT This report intends to analyze the unique brand values, the distinct marketing strategies and the compelling competitive dynamics of Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F), the noted American retailer of casual luxury wear. The purpose of this analysis being to understand the context and motives that drive brand A&F; to draw insights from it‘s past and current strategies and use these to launch a, new sneaker offer‘ within it‘s existing product ensemble. For doing this, we‘ve researched the story of the brand; it‘s original and potential target market, it‘s financial

Of the hundreds of named brand clothing that form part of the retail and fashion industry I chose to compare, for my analysis, Abercrombie & Fitch, Forever 21, American Eagle, and H&M. These stores are prominent, well-known for selling apparel, shoes, and accessories by the means of offering sales and promotions to their customers. This is a clever strategy for attracting customers, allowing them to believe that they bought goods at affordable, convenient prices – and not to mention the prestigious name prescribed to the clothing brands. Using keyhole.co as my main source, I obtained relevant and valuable information regarding the status of these brands. My intentions were to compare a period of 14 days, however, due to the limited access that I received from my free trial, the program only allowed me to see fewer of the dates than I anticipated. I want to take this opportunity and mention ahead of time that due to the various and distinctive products that are sold from these stores, when looking for the “spending capacity” I decided to focus on shirts/ jeans for men and women and compare the prices among them since each of these retailers carry those items and as a way to make this report easier to contrast and comprehend. Also, when approaching the section of “setting”, I screen-shotted some of the images on Instagram and made them into a collage to separate the type of clothes and trends that each of these brands sell currently. In the following modules

The release of 2014 financial statements by American Eagle Outfitters and The Buckle Company require analysis to determine the financial position of the respective companies. A decision between the two companies is needed to decide which company Baruch College Fund should invest in. Findings in our research shows that The Buckle Company beats American Eagle Outfitters in terms of the key performance indicators of return on assets, profit margin, and asset turnover ratio. This information reveals that The Buckle Company is the better company to invest in.

The retailer announced their decision to continue a plethora of store closings after suffering a $63 million loss for Q1 of 2015, worsened by the fact that their losses exceeded the expectations of market analysts (Investopedia). Following the absence of CEO Mike Jeffries as of June 2015, Abercrombie’s stock dipped to its nearly annual low of $19 per share. The company continues to increase promotional efforts while offering uncharacteristic discounts in an effort to lure consumers back into their stores despite weakening profit margins. Abercrombie & Fitch has also furthered its efforts to expand and improve its e-commerce site to develop a more user-friendly shopping experience in the wake of over 200 required store closings nationally. While Abercrombie’s Executive Chairman, Arthur Martinez, attributes the company’s losses to a transitional phase that will likely take several quarters to reflect results of their strategic efforts, analysts continue to suggest that its unlikely consumers will return to the brand despite its new incentives (Forbes Contributor). Currently, Abercrombie’s dismal annual report and small scale efforts to rebrand itself makes it a risky investment option, albeit has potential to improve in the future given their focus on improving their online presence and providing a better return for investors.

Even if the groups of people who shop there aren’t necessarily responding to the “sex sells” approach, they are still advocating it by buying Abercrombie as well as other stores that use sexuality in ads. It is rare to find someone that outwardly objects to this form of advertising; people have come to accept that this has become commonplace in the world of advertisement. This was not always the case though; the prevalence of this style of advertising is fairly new, only starting in the past 10 to 20 years. The difference between advertisements now and in the 60s is one that is shocking when considered in a side-by-side comparison.

While the company may be seeing the start to its decline, past years are proof that Abercrombie and Fitch have made a good name for themselves. How does the industry operate one might ask? There are many sides to the coin when it comes to determining how this company functions, but let’s start with its

According to Keyton, organizational culture is "the set of artifacts, values, and assumptions that emerges from the interactions of organizational members" (Keyton, 2014, p. 550). Over the past few years, past and potential employees of the clothing brand Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) have taken to the media to explain the negative organizational culture that exists within the company. The management values and company policies that create this “image-obsessed culture” have led to multiple human rights lawsuits, which has damaged the reputation of Abercrombie & Fitch globally (Benson, 2013).