GAP'S Reflection: To Become A Brand That May Disappear In The Next 10 Years?

In 2015, it is undoubtedly a relatively turbulent year for the global fashion industry. Many people have been sighing for the news of a series of fashion brands.

At this point, there is no sigh: flowers do not have a hundred days of red.

Compared with the market performance of fast fashion brands everywhere, it is also uneven.

At the moment, as the sales hegemony of the fashion industry, GAP, the representative of the American fashion brand, is accelerating to lag behind, regardless of brand influence or performance growth.

GAP group's stock has fallen 40% in the past year, which is the worst performing stock in the fast fashion industry.

Moreover, more industry analysts pointed out that GAP could become one of the 10 most likely fashion brands to disappear in the next 10 years.

Once upon a time, the GAP brand was popular throughout the United States, and even when Hollywood actress Shharon Stone boarded Oscar, she wore this brand of clothing.

Today, the clothing giant has shut down many stores, and sales are still falling.

According to the latest earnings data released by GAP, the overall sales of the same store in 2015 continued to show a downward trend.

GAP brand itself sold 2% in the same store, while its two major brands, Banana Republic, declined 9% in the same store, while Old Navy sold 7% in the same store.

I believe nobody would like to see that GAP, which originally provided plain jeans for the masses of consumers, and the fashion brand of the LOGO jacket, will disappear forever from the public eye.

Nevertheless, we need to objectively analyze the reasons behind the declining GAP performance.

In terms of design, GAP hopes to create a style that belongs to everyone with simple styles, because product design covers almost all ages.

To put it simply, no matter what age consumers can wear GAP as a daily clothing.

But obviously, the advantage of GAP brand today is no longer there.

In recent years, with the rapid rise of ZARA, H&M and other fast fashion brands, the Internet and social media are constantly accelerating the trend of fashion. People are increasingly advocating a different way of personalized dressing. Like GAP, this popular dressing style has been unable to meet the constantly changing and innovative young consumer groups.

In order to cater to these young consumer groups, in recent years, GAP has also stepped up its pformation in the design style of "touches the soul".

In early 2000, in order to catch young people's

The GAP brand decided to follow the trend and start producing teenagers' favorite colors, exaggerated pants, mini skirts and doll clothes, dresses, etc.

However, this attempt not only did not get the approval of young fashion consumers, but made the design style of GAP flickering, so the older GAP customers lost their trust and good sense of their brand.

From the result, it is precisely that the pformation of traditional design style has not achieved the expected effect, and the negative impact is greater than the positive reason for positive marketing.

From the positioning, facing the market many

Because of the impact of GAP, the brand positioning caused by blindly pleasing consumers has become increasingly blurred. This is also one of the reasons why its brand is in an awkward predicament.

In order to curry favor with the wider consumers, GAP brands frequently use the bottom line discount as a sales tool, which not only failed to restore the original consumer groups, but also hinder the sale of brand products.

After all, in the face of a frequently discounted mass fashion brand, consumers have to wait a few days to buy the same product at a discount price of 30 percent off, 50 percent off or even lower.

Therefore, more and more consumers are no longer willing to pay the price to buy GAP products, which also allows GAP to enter a vicious circle, that is, the intensity of discount is increasing, and the frequency of discount is higher and higher.

From the speed of fashion trends, GAP is far less than ZARA.

The reaction is fast.

From the experience of product sales, GAP is far behind the MUJI of later generations.

In the MUJI shop, all the details are required to the utmost. All clothes are stacked in a very particular way. For example, it is easy for customers to see the folding of the trouser legs.

Even the angle of store lighting and fitting mirror is very exquisite.

It must be said that we still have high hopes for GAP's bold innovation and trial and error, and give ample space and time for innovation and trial and error.

But I also want to see the reflection of GAP: any blind confidence in ignoring market rules will not lead to real success and lead the brand to thoroughfare.

Seize the hearts of consumers, but also respect the core demand of consumers for products, that is, the practicality of products.