Gap Growth Engine Continues To Decline, Closing Stores Is Still Hard To Avoid.

Gap has been adding new impetus to the revival plan of the flag brand in the past few years, but since the post fashion era of the fast fashion began to fall into recession, the recovery plan had little effect. Recently, Gap announced its first quarter earnings, showing the difficult side of recovery prospects.

It is reported that in the first quarter ended April 30th, Gap The group's same store sales fell by 5%, compared with the expected 2.6% decline in the market. Meanwhile, net sales fell again from 3 billion 660 million US dollars in the same period last year to 6% US dollars, which has been retrograde for fifth consecutive quarters.

In the earlier meeting, the group put forward many times that the Gap, Old Navy and the Banana Republic It will start to recover, but from the sales data, it is obviously worse than the same period of last fiscal year. Therefore, the group said it would close at least 175 stores in the next few years, widely distributed in the North American market and European stores. Layoffs will also be reopened.

From the brand situation, brand growth engine brand. Old Navy And Gap continued to retrogress, with a decrease of 4% and 7% respectively, which were lower than market expectations. Therefore, after the group changed its brand name for the brand, the recovery plan, which hopes to re stimulate the growth engine brand growth, has not achieved any success at present.

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Despite the Gap group's decline due to the failure of the old growth engine Old Navy and Gap, Gap has been repeatedly regressed, but thanks to the expansion of sports style, its sub brand Athleta has grown rapidly.

However, Gap group is not willing to disclose any performance data about Athleta, even the same store sales of the brand declined to disclose. But because of the strong development of Athleta in sportswear market, its development is very fast.

It is reported that Athleta will launch the girl product line on the 26 day of this month. The brand positioning consumer group is 6 to 14 years old girl, the product category will include running, swimming, football, basketball and other single products. The design style also draws inspiration from the current very hot women sports series.

In addition to opening stores, Athleta will also promote all aspects of television, video, printing and digital areas to further expand the brand influence plan.