Guan Dian Chao Pushed GAP Group To Asia

Here world

Xiaobian of the network introduces the GAP group's North American market, which is going to be closed shop. What will it do?

The Asian region should be a good choice.

GAP the North American market will go to Asia.

This is a story that tries to satisfy everyone, but finally loses everyone.

Despite its good performance in China, GAP is not comfortable in the US, and it is experiencing a large-scale closing shop trend.

In June, the GAP group announced that it would shut down 175 poor outlets in North America, accounting for 18% of the existing stores in North America.

Meanwhile, GAP headquarters will lay off 250 people as part of the company's plan to enhance its brand productivity and interest rate.

After the implementation of this measure, the number of GAP stores in North America will be reduced from 977 to 800, including 500 stores and 300 outlet.

Closing shop was not a sudden start.

Before that, GAP has gone through 10 years of frustrations. This time is only the latest example.

The decline in same store sales for 13 consecutive months is regarded as the most direct reason for GAP's closing.

The main brand GAP has become the brand that dragged the whole GAP group back.

As of the first quarter of May 2, 2015, financial reports showed that GAP earned $3 billion 657 million, down 3.1% from a year earlier of $3 billion 774 million.

GAP group's 2014 annual report shows that revenues of GAP, Old Navy and Banana Republic are 6 billion 165 million, 6 billion 619 million and 2 billion 922 million US dollars respectively.

Do you realize that when you want to buy basic funds, you will go directly to UNIQLO; when you want to buy clothes that are nice and not too expensive, you will go to Zara or cheaper H&M.

Under what circumstances do you go to GAP? It is probably just passing through a GAP while shopping, and there is just a lot of time left.

This is precisely James Harkin's analysis of GAP's dilemma in "minority behavior". "GAP's target customers are hard to be captive. Its target customers are everyone. If you are satisfied with all people, then you are nothing."

After swinging from mass market to young people to the mass market, the old casual brand, far from the fashion and the material, to the design, failed to make the basic money like the UNIQLO.

As one of the four fastest fashion brands in the world and once the largest clothing retailer in the world, GAP was even named Forbes as one of the five most likely fashion brands to disappear in 2013.

"GAP has been abandoned by the vast middle market (the mass market) because it first turned to the young market, when it acknowledged the mistake and tried to redraw the middle market, but found no intermediate market."

James Harkin said.

A few rounds of hesitation made GAP blurred and had a bad effect on the brand and the market.

Retail expert KristinBentz even thinks that UNIQLO should buy GAP and directly use it to expand its strongholds in the North American market.

"UNIQLO should be the object of GAP learning, offering good design and good quality at a low price.

Products. "

What you may not know is that UNIQLO was inspired by the GAP warehouse self shopping mode and targeted GAP as its target.

In the past ten years, the fast fashion field has been dominated by four brands, including Zara, H&M, GAP and UNIQLO.

GAP, which has lost its core competitiveness, seems unable to compete in a competitive market.

"In the 80s and 90s of last century, people had no access to high-end fashion.

That's the golden age of business and entertainment. The core businesses of businesses are selling well.

KateDavidHudson, co-founder of online fashion magazine Editorialist, said, "but nowadays, everyone can see the latest trend through social media and blogs. Everyone is a critic. Consumers want to buy it immediately after they want to see it.

GAP brands are very outdated. "

This once unique brand must now rely on the label of "others" to define itself.

As fast fashion, is it fast enough?

At the end of 2013, Goldman Sachs released a report that "the purchasing team of fast fashion retailers purchased the current fashions from the third party producers, while the design team of the traditional fashion retailers first predicted the fashion trend after 12 months, and then developed related products."

The pattern of GAP belongs to the latter.

Goldman Sachs believes that there is a risk of a year ahead of the forecast fashion trend, which is restricting the development of fashion retailers such as GAP, Abercrombie&Fitch, AnnTaylor and AmericanEagle.

If these retailers predict errors, their products have to be sold at a reduced price, thereby affecting profits.

On the contrary, the strategy of Zara is to store less goods and get more new products.

Traditional brands only last once a quarter, and Zara can go up two times a week.

From start design to new product store, GAP takes ten months, which is three times of Zara and H&M.

Its new CEO has previously said it should shorten the cycle to 30 weeks, but this is still about two times that of its competitors.

So, is GAP the basic item? Why UNIQLO can win by the basic funds, and has beaten the GAP of the US market on the basis of basic funds, but has failed?

In many people's eyes, basic means not only means "wild Joker" but also means "Ugliness".

Of course, this is why UNIQLO has been criticized by some people.

UNIQLO is smarter than GAP, though I am ugly, but I am cheap and play with technology.

One of the core strengths of UNIQLO is its research and development of new fabrics, fleece, light down and Heatteck. These technical materials give higher value to the basic fund and give customers a reason to pay for it.

Julie Zerbo, the fashion lawyer and founder of fashion law, thinks that the problem lies in frequent changes at the top level.

Since the fall of the star CEO Mickey Drexler in 2002, several creative directors and executives have come and gone from Paul Pressler to Patrick Robinson to RebekkaBay.

Frequent substitution does not help capture or rebuild the style of the brand, but also makes GAP lose consistency in the design direction.

The result is unsightly.

Consumers can't find the basic funds they want in GAP, but they are lost in tun BA's T-shirts, strange printed trousers, colorful colors and cheap fabrics.

When the product itself has problems, the consequence is that customers do not know what to buy at GAP.

"Gap has no direction and no self in creation, and customers can see this," Davidson Hudson said. "GAP needs to be clear: This is the two most important style we think of this season. This is the two style that we support. This is the best style for you."

The good news is that GAP seems to be doing well outside the US, especially in Asia.

After its entry into China in October 2010, GAP opened 81 stores in China at the end of last year, and opened 34 new businesses in 2014. It is expected to open 30 more this year.

GAP said earlier this year that it expects to increase China's sales by two times to 1 billion US dollars in the next three years, making it the second largest market in the world.

The shop closes and layoffs will not affect China.

。

It seems that GAP is trying to reduce its dependence on the North American market and shift its focus to areas such as Asia.

I hope Asia will not let it down here.