A&F Does Not Have "Naked Men Welcome" But Sells Children's Clothing In Shanghai.

Abercrombie & Fitch (hereinafter referred to as A&F) is no longer a "naked male welcome" is not news, but for Chinese customers, the first opportunity to "real" feel that A&F's strategic pformation should be in the past weekend.

In December 19th, the US fashion brand A&F opened its fifth store in China on the ground floor of IFC, Lujiazui, Shanghai.

At the opening ceremony, you will never see a naked male figure showing the eight abdominal muscles surrounded by a group of female customers. (maybe you still have the impression that in 2015, 4 months, a vote of naked muscle men lined up at the opening of the Kerry Center store in Jingan, Shanghai), and when you enter the store, you will see a brighter light, lighter background music, and a more fragrant A&F shop. The shop that used to be a night shop is the sign of A&F. At first glance, everything is very familiar, but after careful consideration, everything will be changed.

"Now A&F's new stores are doing this, and some old stores in the United States are also moving in this direction," Ryan Wibisono, general manager of A&F IFC store in Shanghai, told reporters on the interface.

"This is because in the process of communicating with customers, we find that customers prefer a brighter shopping environment, so that we can see clearly the color of the merchandise, for example, we can not tell whether a garment is black or navy blue."

He also cited lighting as an example to illustrate the reasons for these changes.

"Communicating with customers" and "understanding"

"A group of phrases has been repeatedly mentioned in the exclusive interview with A&F market and senior director of public relations, Michael Scheiner.

In the caliber of Scheiner and all A&F employees, the brand abandonment of naked men marketing, changing the presentation of stores, and even redefining the brand definition and target customers are all due to their emphasis on customer experience and the realization that customer preferences have changed.

But in fact, A&F's change is more like a series of remedies.

Over the past few years, A&F's performance has been declining: in the 2015 fiscal year, the group's first quarter net loss increased from $23 million 700 thousand in the previous quarter to 63 million 200 thousand US dollars; the 2014 year sales group's annual sales decreased by about 9.1% to 3 billion 744 million US dollars compared with 2013 (its best performance in the 2011 fiscal year was over $4 billion 500 million), and the net profit was only 20%% of 2012 net profit.

It is precisely because of these performance problems that A&F started all kinds of self-help, including the dismissal of the original CEO, the large-scale closure of North American stores, the abandonment of sexy marketing, the change of product design and the layout of stores.

"We believe that the direction of pformation is feasible and our latest financial performance is good. This is the best season we've had in recent years."

Scheiner said.

According to the latest third quarter earnings report, as of October 31, 2015, the net profit of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. group rose to 18 million 200 thousand US dollars from 41 million 900 thousand a year ago, an increase of 130%.

However, the "customers" that make A&F make the above pformation decisions are mostly the customers in the US market, and have little to do with Chinese customers.

As far as the A&F group is concerned, its brands are now distributed in 954 stores around the world, and 783 of them are in the United States. In the long past, this kind of sexy leisure for American high school students can be more popular in the US market than in the overseas market.

On the other hand, A&F entered China in 2014. At present, only 5 retail outlets in China have limited impact on the global situation.

"We listened to customers' opinions. Since sexy is not a customer's requirement, then we decided to make a comprehensive pformation," Scheiner said. "From our interaction with micro-blog, WeChat platform and Chinese customers, I feel that Chinese customers are accepting our pformation."

But is "naked guy" really not effective for Chinese customers? If it is true, there will not be so many companies following the imitation. For example, this year's 7 month month, "sweetheart rock salad" has brought dozens of foreign men to play the naked Spartan warriors, serving meals in Beijing Sanlitun business district.

Even if you were not in Beijing that day, you must have been in the circle of friends.

Then, without the memory of "naked men", "night shop wind" and even strong perfume, what elements should A&F rely on to reinvent themselves in the hearts of customers?

This will be a more prominent problem in the Chinese market, which has not really established a sense of existence.

But the challenge that A&F faces is far more than just how to pinpoint the new location that customers can remember.

A&F entered the Chinese market only in 2014. It also needs to face the slowdown of China's economic growth in the past two years, and the retail business environment is getting worse than before.

According to an unnamed international fast fashion brand marketing department, told the interface reporter, the brand's 2016 year old market budget has been reduced by 30%, and the reason is that the brand is expected to be in China in 2016.

The environment will be worse than 2015 years, and sales and marketing will be more difficult than before.

Therefore, A&F wants to do something in the Chinese market, and must do more than the "brand" global strategy.

A&F is a "new person" with only 5 stores in the Chinese market. Its exposure to stores is far less than that of other overseas fashion brands that have entered the Chinese market earlier. Compared with the fast fashion brands such as H&M, Forever 21 and Zara, it sells at a higher price, while the "westerly" concept with little concept among Chinese customers is not enough to differentiate itself as competitive.

If the brand positioning of A&F before pformation can also be described by the sexy casual fashion brand oriented to young people, then the A&F positioning after pformation is more ambiguous.

"We can not give an exact description now," Scheiner said somewhat hesitant in answering the new positioning of A&F. "What I can say is that our brand positioning is now biased towards a lightweight luxury lifestyle brand, and our target consumer group is more extensive than before. The age group will also increase from 20 to 30 years old."

Correspondingly, A&F introduced the children's wear line products to the Asian market for the first time in the newly opened IFC store to attract young parents.

At the same time, with the opening of new stores, A&F also worked with Wagas, a leisure western restaurant chain, to pform 3 Wagas stores and launched A&F packaged coffee.

Through cooperation with Wagas, A&F tried to expand the market to a more business age group.

In addition, in order to further attract Chinese customers, A&F also launched the first limited edition of the regional market perfume, though it only wrapped Chinese red on its signature perfume.