Promoting Brand Loyalty at Abercrombie & Fitch

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

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

Abercrombie & Fitch stores designs it retail stores from a multi-sensory point of view to get consumer’s to buy there products. Abercrombie & Fitch stores typically is known for its dim lighting, loud background music, and it ambient scents to enable a more youthful clientele and a fresher image. In the store, there are mannequins for both genders that usually runs from the storefront through the middle of the store, which showcases key trends and ideas for the current season. Also, there collections are merchandised to inspire the customer and showcase how pieces can be mixed together.

As alternatives to Hollister, customers likely consider brands located in the surrounding areas such as American Eagle, Forever 21 or Urban Outfitters. The choice to purchase Hollister, however, involves buying into the company philosophy and history. Hollister, similar to other Abercrombie subsidiaries, devised a fictional company history to aid in its credibility and marketing. Abercrombie designed a character, John Hollister, who founded the company in Southern California in 1922 after years of travelling the world. The brand also positioned itself as a sponsor of surfing contests and events in seaside California cities such as Santa Cruz and Huntington Beach. While these creative concepts remained fictitious, they became powerful assets in

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

success factors. However, the company has a few weaknesses and threats they need to address in

The intensity of rivalry and the threat of substitutes are strong components for J.C. Penney to consider as they continue to strive for increased revenue and market share. Their two primary competitors are Macy’s and Kohl’s, both of whom have fiercely competitive strategies to be strong retail operations. For instance, while Macy’s offers a multitude of promotional deals and is working hard to choose products based upon demographics and geographic segmentation, Kohl’s is attempting to reduce their inventory levels and improve their marketing strategies in order to become a stronger competitor in the department store segment of the retail industry. In order to compete with their competitors, J.C. Penney aims to focus on their previously successful promotions and home department segmentations by bringing in new reputable designers in order to attract a larger customer base. Due to the fact that the intensity of rivalry and threat of substitutes are both moderately strong in the retail department store industry, J.C. Penney ought to be diligent in their implementation of strategies in order to achieve success in the retail business.

The women's apparel market is highly competitive. With the launch of a new active-wear line from Harrington Collection's, more and more competitors will start to realise the potential value in in producing an active-wear line of their own. The active-wear market is growing so rapidly (expected to double turnover from 2007 to 2009), that eventually all of Harrington's competitors would likely be expected to launch a line of their own, relying on existing brand loyalty and high-scale advertising campaigns to capture market share and move units.

Threat: Forces shaping the Nordstrom’s strategy is that it is operating in highly competitive environment, where apparel sold by it is not only competing with large organized departmental chains but, also from small independent boutiques in the U.S. As a result competition has become very stiff in retail

The retail industry is highly competitive, with few barriers to entry. Each Company competes with many other local, regional and national retailers for customers, associates, locations, merchandise, services and other important aspects of the Company’s business. Those competitors include other department stores, discounters, home furnishing stores, specialty retailers, wholesale clubs, direct-to-consumer businesses and other forms of retail commerce. Some competitors are larger than JCPenney, have greater financial resources available to them, and, as a result, may be able to devote greater resources to sourcing, promoting and selling their products.” There are many factors that characterize competition, including advertising, service,

HollisterCo is a beach themed clothing company. It was founded in 1922 by Mike Jeffries where back then it was still not a well-known company until the founder of Abercrombie and Fitch takes over it. It offers a wide range of apparel and accessories for men and women which includes logo tees, graphic shirts, tanks, bottom wear and even sleepwear. It also provides colognes, perfume, gloss products, body care products as well as gift cards. (“Short Title”, 2014). Hollister has 51 outlets in 19 different counties. Hollister also enable buyers from other countries to purchase their products through their online store.

The cash flow situation started falling from the end of year 12. The company should have known from this.

The brand expanded into Canada after receiving success in America, and later opened their first store outside of America on December 2008 in London. They have expanded from one location, to now having five hundred and seventy eight locations across the globe.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co., also known as A&F, was founded in 1892 by David Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch. Its headquarter is located in New Albany, Ohio. May be nobody knew that this apparel retailer was from its beginning a kind of elite outfitter of expensive sporting and excursion goods. The company, with more than two hundred subsidiaries around the world, sells casual apparel for men, women, and kids.

Cash on hand is $398 million. This is only a $110 million increase from December 31, 1999. This means relatively little, as the cash flows for the corporation is what really matters.