President Of China Will Leave Gap Wind To Blow.

Ten days later,

(Gapu) China regional president Ke Weijie (Jeff Kirwan) will leave office.

After 4 years in China, he has gone through two heads of charge, which has an annual sales of $13 billion.

The performance in the Chinese market has not been undulating.

In the rapidly competitive fashion market in China, as a latecomer, with H&M,

Under the background of the same type of consumer brand competition, the market left more pressure on Gap.

Executive turnover

In recent days, Ke Weijie is very busy. He is constantly rushing to work between China and the US headquarters.

On the one hand, he needs to hand over the work of the current China region to his successor, Abinta Malik as soon as possible.

At the same time, we should familiarise ourselves with Gap brand's global business as soon as possible in the United States, and do our homework for its new position in December 19th, Gap brand global president.

At that time, Ke Weijie will end his three term as president of Gap China.

In addition, Gap group will usher in personnel changes at a higher level at the beginning of next year.

It is understood that in February 1, 2015, the group's current chairman and chief executive officer, Glenn Murphy, will be leaving, replacing Art Peck, President of the current growth, innovation and digital department.

Such high-level personnel changes are naturally linked to the performance of the Gap group.

According to the three quarterly report released in November, the Gap group's overall same store sales fell 2% in the three quarter of this year, of which Gap brand fell 5%, while Old Navy recorded a 1% growth, a significant slowdown compared with 4% in the two quarter, while Banana Republic remained unchanged.

Gap total sales in the three quarter totaled $3 billion 972 million, down slightly from 3 billion 976 million US dollars in the same period last year, less than $4 billion 40 million expected by the market.

"Such a slight drop will not be the reason for high-level personnel changes."

Wang Zhu, who has worked in Gap for many years, told reporters.

He has worked in several American companies, he said. Generally speaking, there are two cases of executives in American companies, usually about 3 years, and the other is directly linked to performance. If the performance decline is obvious, it will be readjust.

"Gap's adjustment should belong to the former, and it is also in line with the company's very cautious principle. It will not carry out large-scale personnel changes due to short-term small performance decline."

Although sales of Gap declined slightly in the three quarter, its net profit increased by 4.2%, from 337 million US dollars in the same period last year to US $351 million.

The Glenn Murphy, which began in July 2007 as the chief executive, has increased the market value of the Gap group by nearly 2 times, and its net profit has increased by 54%.

For the recent adjustment of senior executives, Gap told reporters that Glenn Murphy was leaving because of retiring from Gap group.

The successor, Art Peck, served as the North American president of the Gap Cape brand in 2011-2012 years, cleaned up the excess inventory and upgraded stores for the brand, and participated in the acquisition of sports Yoga brand Athleta and luxury retailer Intermix.

Wang Zhu believes that at present, Gap's Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic three brands are all self owned brands, which develop more stable and durable, while Peck is involved in the acquisition of Athleta and Intermix, which is of great benefit to the overall development of the company.

At the same time, Peck just saw the excellent performance of Gap in Greater China, leading the Gap brand global business to Ke Wei Jie.

"I believe that under his leadership, Gap brand will achieve the same success in the global development."

Peck says.

Since its entry into the Chinese market in 2010, the first Gap store opened in Guangzhou as of November 8th this year. The number of stores in 25 cities in mainland China, Hongkong and Taiwan is over 100, and is considered to be a milestone in the development of the brand in China.

Its brand Old Navy has just entered the Chinese market in March this year, and has now covered Shanghai, Wuxi, Suzhou and Shenzhen, and was settled in Beijing in December.

By then, Old Navy brand opened 7 stores in 5 cities in less than a year.

Compared with the European fast fashion brands that have entered the Chinese market earlier, the expansion rate of Gap in China is not slow.

"But with the strength of Gap, the 100 stores certainly are not many, which is related to their usual prudent strategy."

A person familiar with Gap analyzed the reporter.

In his view, unlike some brands in China, thousands of shops are open and the quantity is not high quality. "Gap knows how to control the pace of opening up shop and decide to move."

Latecomer

Although such a description is often seen in the Gap strategy, "China has become an important part of the Gap group's growth strategy," but compared to other fashion brands, its time to enter China has been slowed down.

Gap, which was born in San Francisco in 1969, has occupied the US leisure wear brand market in the shortest time, and has achieved the greatest expansion.

Pop queen Madonna and middle-class idol Sarah Jessica Parke have endorsed him, and Lewinsky's famous blue skirt also comes from Gap.

{page_break}

"Just like UNIQLO's fleece products are popular in Japan, Gap's classic sweater is popular in the United States, and can even be said to be one hand."

Those familiar with Gap said.

Gap was once one of the biggest clothing brands in the world, and even became the successful representative of clothing parity.

But by 2007, "Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic" had not been properly handled due to the problem of mutual positioning, making the brand positioning very vague.

Coupled with some of the more impacting styles of some European brands, the Gap market is beginning to be affected.

Thus, in the first quarter of 2008, Gap group's revenue was first overtaken by the Spanish fast fashion brand ZARA parent Inditex group.

After that, Gap began to shift its focus to overseas markets.

In October 17, 2008, the Gap group announced changes in its market strategy.

"In the future, we will shift the focus of the work of Gap and Banana Republic brand to the expansion of overseas businesses, and in addition, we will also focus on the operation of the network."

In the Asian market, Gap chose to enter Korea and Japan first.

Although Gap has many products that are "made in China", and "about 2005-2006 years ago, there were Gap counters in some shopping malls in China, but they were all sold in the form of franchising. The place was very small, and it didn't take long to close."

The foregoing said.

Public information shows that in order to find new international business opportunities to ease the downturn in the domestic market, Gap plans to open its own stores in China in 2009.

Glenn Murphy once told investors that he wanted to open a shop in China because he found in Beijing and Shanghai that there were European H&M and ZARA, Japan's UNIQLO (Uniqlo), but there was no clothing brand in the United States.

But it wasn't until Gap opened stores in Beijing and Shanghai in 2010 that its retail business really entered China.

At that time, in the clothing market of the first tier cities, ZARA entered China in 2006, and H&M, which entered in 2007, has begun to show its strength, and set off the first wave of fashion craze in China.

"Gap is late when it comes in, not to mention its products are not ZARA and H&M fast, which is especially challenging for them."

The foregoing said.

It is worth noting that both ZARA and H&M come from European countries.

These countries themselves are not big, and the domestic market space is very limited.

Looking at the US in turn, "the whole consumption situation is similar to that of China. Many adults are in the market. The US market is enough for Gap to expand for a while."

The source said that this is why the Gap group's international market share has not been high since its birth.

Yang Deming, President of Gap China, also admitted that "we can not open 1000 stores in the United States. The new space is definitely outside North America."

He also insisted that it would be wrong if he did not enter the Chinese market in 2010, but there was no "coming late".

In fact, Gap has been in China for 4 years, whether late or late.

Fortunately, in the face of the market which has been occupied by the opponent, it is not eager to change its positioning and tonality, but to follow its own rhythm step by step.

Wang bamboo used "robust" to describe the development of Gap in China. "As far as I know, the performance of these years in the Greater China region has been very stable, and there has been no ups and downs. This is largely due to Gap's persistence in certain things."

Proceed cautiously

When the typical American fashion representative Gap meets the European fast fashion in the Chinese market, its choice is not to imitate or to converge.

In the words of the foregoing people, "Gap is actually a brand with its own attitude."

In the past two years, the trend of fashion is basically controlled by the European fast fashion such as ZARA and H&M. Even these two brands have become the brand of word-of-mouth in China, and become the object of many garment enterprises.

Gap did not follow the direction of ZARA and H&M from product design, or insisted on making the casual casual style of jeans, khaki trousers and T-shirts in the most simple and comfortable way.

In the aforementioned industry perspective, Gap's products are indeed somewhat different from the mainstream, but "every brand has its own tonality, and Gap insists on it very well."

When you find that more and more other brands are following European fashion, "they are making tight, short crotch and low waist jeans, while Gap's American leisure still puts comfort and comfort in the first place."

To a certain extent, it also reflects the original intention of the founder Doris and Don Fisher in creating Gap brand: people can easily find a real pair of jeans.

Wang Zhu's impression is that Gap always adheres to this concept in its products. "Fit and comfort are the most important pursuit, not the fashionable and fashionable waist pants."

Those who knew the Gap also admitted that the version of American jeans is much better than that of the European style and is much more comfortable.

He believes that in the future, as we slowly realize that "wearing clothes is to do ourselves, let ourselves feel."