How To Change The Lifestyle Of A&F?

Abercrombie & Fitch will open Fifth stores in China, and they have also thought of a new way to popularize it: to cooperate with the catering brand Wagas, to launch special drinks.

Shanghai will have three Wagas stores decorated into A&F theme, and drinks will be listed on all Wagas stores in Shanghai.

In the past 2015, we may have said at least 5 times how unsatisfactory the company's performance was.

Same store sales fell for 13 consecutive quarters, with net losses rising from $23 million 700 thousand to 6320 million in the first quarter.

At present, the company is seeking pformation. According to the latest three quarter earnings report, net profit growth is as high as 130% due to reduced discount sales and cost control.

"Sexy marketing is not working well."

Michael Scheiner, senior director of marketing and PR relations, told us, "now we need to do lifestyle."

Sexy marketing is not easy to use. Well, it's one thing to say this from the media. It's another thing to say from A&F.

It means that the so-called "look and decline" is not a bad thing, and the company really boils down to bad sales in the past.

However, we must say that hormones are human nature.

Sex always has a market, and A&F's judgement today is not necessarily correct.

They claim that they want to sell their lifestyle, but what is the lifestyle of A&F?

A&F's current operation seems to have all the way back.

CEO Mike Jeffries, who promoted the sexy marketing route one by one, left a big change in the top 8 and the design team in 2015. Now, Aaron Levine from Club Monaco and Kristina Szasz from PVH are the design directors of men's and women's series respectively.

This new store opened on the ground floor of IFC, Shanghai, Lujiazui. The lights of the new store are brighter, the music is not loud, the display is more open, and the clothes design is no longer tight. But the logo of the naked men's perfume is still on sale, and the fragrance is lightened by 25%.

Brand has also attributed the unfavorable situation of sales to excessive logo exposure.

It has been said for quite a while, but we also do not fully agree with this statement.

You look at the so-called "tide card" on the main street, which is not a super Logo, but the cool boys do not care about them.

The real problem is the flood of counterfeit goods before. Logo has become a sign that people can not avoid it. It is a reason for the Burberry's grid disaster.

"Lifestyle" and "remove logo" are mentioned repeatedly in Michael. They do not yet have a clear strategy for Chinese market.

Such as whether to enter Tmall (Abercrombie & Fitch's low price line).

Tmall stores, such as future expansion plans in China, such as what brands think Chinese consumers want.

They were also introduced into stores for the first time.

Because I think many guests are shopping with their children, they want to try to enter the Chinese children's wear market.

But Michael did not answer more specifically to the exact market characteristics and product demand.

When we asked about what the vision of "100 stores in 10 years" meant, he couldn't answer it either.

From the number of fans on micro-blog platform and WeChat's reading volume, A&F's performance on social networking platform is fairly good (if the data is real).

A&F is still a stranger in China. How can they be?

The only thing to be sure is that the competition for fast fashion is extremely intense, and their days will not be too easy.

Oh, yes, this time, there will be no crowds of naked men attracting guests at their new shops.