A&F Repositioning Aims To Regain Market Share, Focus On Design And Optimize Inventory.

< p > November 6th, the famous American youth clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) group announced its third quarter results.

The report shows that in the third quarter, A&F fell by 14% compared with the second quarter, including 14% in the US market and 15% in the international market.

At the same time, it announces that it will close all independent stores of its underwear brand < a href= "http://www.91se91.com/news/list.aspx ClassID=101112107108" > Gilly Hicks < /a >.

Faced with the four quarter of the holiday season, the group is also not optimistic about the market outlook. It is expected that the same store sales in the four quarter will face a double-digit decline.

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< p > < strong > seeking new position in market competition < /strong > < /p >

< p > A&F group has more than 1000 stores in the world, including Abercrombie & Fitch brand store, Abercrombie Kids children's wear shop and Hollister tide shop.

But A&F said that the company's current R & D links are lagging behind, especially when compared with competitors such as fast fashion retailers H&M, Forever 21 and pure e-commerce company Asos, A&F still needs more energy in designing the latest link.

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< p > as a brand represented by vigor and vitality, the frustration of A&F also stems from the weakness of the overall expenditure of young consumers.

A&F executives say it is necessary to establish a more rapid testing and response mechanism in the supply chain to resonate with the main consumer group of young people.

"We believe that this decision will help us find new positioning."

A&F group CEO Mike Jeffries said at a recent news conference.

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< p > A&F has planned to improve the business of product classification, procurement and inventory.

Leslee Herro, director of planning and distribution at A&F group, said that the optimization of these projects will help to increase market share, increase the average unit retail rate, reduce the average unit cost, reduce the average unit cost (AUC), increase the speed of product delivery and reduce the operation cost of stores.

In the future, the company is confident of winning the market share in the core product area, and is confident that it will expand its core business to other market areas.

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< p > < strong > accurate classification of demand < /strong > < /p >

< p > reasonable classification will help improve speed and accuracy.

In the garment production process, a quick update of the test report and feedback calendar will shorten the cycle of mass production, and speed up the product from conception to shelf.

By accurately classifying, after capturing market demand information, R & D and production departments can quickly find the raw materials needed from different fabric brands and categories. Faster reaction time and larger production scale will help reduce production costs.

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< p > strategically, accurate classification will effectively supplement the special design and private label products required by the market.

"We are ready to conduct small-scale design tests and production customization for customers with special needs. We hope to introduce some attractive women products in 2014 a href=" http://www.91se91.com/news/list.aspx ClassID=101112107107 "> back to school season" /a ".

The classification strategy not only helps companies react quickly to major trends, but also ensures reasonable allocation of trend products and resources.

Herro explains.

A&F group also emphasizes that it is very important to increase the freshness of fashion in the whole classification process. Enterprises should have the ability to distinguish and accurately launch new products from existing market products.

In the classification test, we should also subdivide the number of products into the shop and the degree of product attention.

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< p > in addition, A&F group said that according to the market demand, it is particularly important to make more precise positioning and design of clothing LOGO.

"Compared with the past, customers are generally interested in LOGO (brand), but there will always be more customers.

This requires the LOGO products we design to achieve minimal differences in marketing and non marketing styles.

Other classified measures to revitalize the brand include expanding the women's blouse series, providing more sizes and colors to meet the diverse needs of customers.

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< p > < strong > improving purchasing and inventory management < /strong > < /p >

< p > the strategic focus of purchasing is to establish strategic sourcing alliance with the most important a href= "http://www.91se91.com/news/list.aspx ClassID=101112107105" > purchasing supplier < /a >, which requires retailers to have faster reaction time to save costs.

In addition, reservations ahead of time will help retailers reduce costs and increase profitability.

"In the long run, retailers need to develop procurement plans for several quarters instead of one quarter."

Herro explained that in order to more effectively plan and manage inventory, A&F group has planned to prepare for the purchase of garments for Christmas and spring 2014.

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< p > for inventory management, Herro points out that in general, there are a large number of stock commodities and a large number of goods. There are not many brands, but the market value is large. Some brands have a large number of brands, but their market capitalization is not large. In order to save resources, enterprises have to subdivide the stock garments. A&F should be divided into three grades according to the quantity and the amount of funds occupied, especially the important stocks, the general important stocks and the unimportant stocks.

In addition, due to various uncertainties, such as pportation and seasonal replacement, inventory should also be taken into account, such as cyclic inventory, pportation inventory and seasonal inventory.

Herro finally emphasized that we must keep the minimum inventory necessary to meet the demand, and most importantly, we should set up inventory from the perspective of value creation.

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