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Gap Looking To Close Hundreds of Stores at Malls 'Quickly and Aggressively' (cnbc.com)
Gap plans to "quickly" close hundreds of Gap-brand stores that are "dragging down the brand," the company told analysts on Tuesday. From a report: The retailer said Tuesday evening that it still has 775 Gap-branded stores globally, in addition to those under the Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta banners. Gap Inc. has more than 3,000 stores around the world. The namesake brand, however, has been the weakest unit of the company of late. In the fiscal third quarter, sales at Gap stores open for at least 12 months fell 7 percent, while those at Old Navy and Banana Republic were positive.
"There are hundreds of other stores that likely don't fit our vision for the future of Gap brand specialty store, whether in terms of profitability, customer experience, traffic trends," CEO Art Peck said Tuesday evening during a call with analysts. "The range from the very best to the very worst stores is extremely broad." Peck said that should the company "address" the bottom half of its fleet of Gap stores, it could contribute more than $100 million to earnings. He added the company is looking to make decisions about shutting stores "with urgency," including looking at closing some of Gap's "amazing flagships." "There likely will be a cash cost to exit many of these stores, which we will attempt to minimize," Peck told analysts. "But I plan to exit those that do not fit the future vision quickly. I'm going to move thoughtfully but aggressively."
"There are hundreds of other stores that likely don't fit our vision for the future of Gap brand specialty store, whether in terms of profitability, customer experience, traffic trends," CEO Art Peck said Tuesday evening during a call with analysts. "The range from the very best to the very worst stores is extremely broad." Peck said that should the company "address" the bottom half of its fleet of Gap stores, it could contribute more than $100 million to earnings. He added the company is looking to make decisions about shutting stores "with urgency," including looking at closing some of Gap's "amazing flagships." "There likely will be a cash cost to exit many of these stores, which we will attempt to minimize," Peck told analysts. "But I plan to exit those that do not fit the future vision quickly. I'm going to move thoughtfully but aggressively."
Why shop at Gap when you can shop at Uniqlo? Same price range, a level up in quality.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I mean, yeah, I get it, nerds wear clothes too, but so does almost everyone else.
When was the last time anyone visiting this web site EVER shopped at a Gap retail store?
How is this news for geeks and nerds?
Do we have retail nerds here now?
Is it because of Amazon and Bezos?
Why am I asking rhetorical questions?
Could it be that I've been infected by Slashdot's editors?
Donnie will take care of this, and Gap will be swimming in money soon.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
... send you to be diverging a bit...
Yes, and Nerds just love more news about national clothing outlets like The Gap closing stores!
What an odd story. I think I've been in The Gap maybe 2 times in the past 10 years, and that was because someone I was with wanted to go in.
Sears bankruptcy and closing is a much bigger deal, but I don't see any articles about it. (Which is good, since Sears closing is also not really Nerd News). Why is this article on Slashdot?
Yeaaahhhhhh!!!!11one
but seriously Slashdot is not HN, we don't need to get spammed with bullshit "entrepreneurial" crap that has nothing to do with tech ok.
Why is this /. news???
A least it's nice to see someone with consistency.. /., and the current dissarray of things perhaps her hed is in someone elses auns, or in a move to save money "do more with less" perhaps that hed is up several Ansus's. But the consistancy that I am referring to,
all these years and still your head is firmly planted in your anus.
Well Wait a minute, based on the fact that it's
The crap this individual publishes here is still the same "crap" which definitely indicates deep insertion in an anus somewhere..
Go Home please..
Uh...khakis.
Our golden parachutes mustn't suffer!
Where will I get the cheap wear-once sweat-shop-chic?
Will gap shutdown before sears?
Slashdot has used "News for Nerds" tagline to indicate the type of content the site has that appeals to it's core demographic, and "Stuff That Matters" to cover topics of general interest to society, but that also may seriously effect it's core demographic. It's difficult to understand how this story falls under either slogan.
Gap.
That's what "gap" stands for: Great Looking Pants.
Um, how long is never?
To work at an Amazon fulfillment center.
When did /. become yahoo home page? Who gives a shit if Gap closes?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
You seem to confuse us with "FlashClod - Dreck for douches. Rage that's wasted.".
If the retail jobs dry up, where will the teeming masses go? Manufacturing jobs are going down. It's the service sector that has been the driver of "growth" in many countries.
this is however a perfect example of the myth of stock market growth means a good economy (in terms of what your average worker says when he means good economy, i.e., jobs and earnings are good)
this is going to put a zillion people out of work but no doubt their stock price will skyrocket
I had a good laugh at "dragging down the brand" -- since when was GAP ever a good brand? LOL Close them up! I just feel badly for the people that will lose their jobs.
It's not like there was a top 10 song about nerdiness that mentions The Gap...
This is neither "News for Nerds" nor "Stuff that Matters."
Company boards waking up to realize that overextending yourself and your brand can be negative to profit margin, news at 11. In all seriousness though, there's still value in brick and mortar but using that model as solely a distribution is dying. Customers are seeing that simply walking into a store just for the ability to purchase something isn't worth their time.
That's not to say general retail is dead, quite the opposite, but name-brand shopping isn't the same as going into WalMart and grabbing the first package of T-Shirts you see. Name-brand retail and single market retail are going to need to adapt to a more specialty market mentality. Simply saying, "Oh hey buy Gap because there's one only six miles down the road from you!" Isn't going to cut it. Even name-brand loyalist will go online first before they walk into a store, and will prefer delivery to their door more over delivery to storefront. That trend is only going to accelerate.
The illogical fear that disappearing from physical presence will equate to less exposure and less sales has got to be something that companies get past. Keeping a massive footprint that doesn't generate traffic is a gaping hole that's bleeding dollars.
Maybe it would have been helpful to explain what Gap is. I haven't the faintest idea.
I suspect no one. Wrong site editors. News for Nerds is calling and wants it site back.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Retail is the canary in the coal mine
The new slogan is shortened to "News...Stuff..."
came for "millenials are killing the Gap because they're too poor to wear clothes" and didn't find it
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This is important because we've all had to mind the gap at some point. If the gap is closing, then it won't be necessary to mind the gap anymore!
You know the song "Fall into the gap"
And it was
"Wilson's house of suede and leather"
(because I just went and looked at the label on my jacket)
Although this looks like it was shot with multiple cameras, it was actually a clever application of CGI and texture mapping. It was a ground breaking commercial.
Later the effect was used in The Matrix (frozen time avoiding bullets).
The actual multicamera rig was first used on a Lexus commercial, and on "spy kids"
I'd like to believe that, but I'm part of a group of a few hundred that got laid off from there this summer when they shipped our jobs to India.
Where was "Donnie" then?
And realized the crap they sell at The Gap is the same crap they sell at Old Navy, just with the higher mark up.
It's not like there was a top 10 song about nerdiness that mentions The Gap...
Never heard of it.
They should rebrand the stores as "PLUS-SIZED Gap". They'd be rollin' in the dough.
Ummm, this is News for Nerds, not News for Thirty-Something Formerly Self-Imagined Cool Kids.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
sales cannibalizing said company's brick and mortar. The timing of it against other online trends and demographics can inform other retailers about what to look for to plan ahead so that you don't spend gobs of money closing lots of stores surprisingly fast. Have opened and closed out retail locations. The logistics of one at a time is easy. The logistics of doing a lot ibetcha are less simple and more costly.
Uniqlo is nothing more than just another sweatshop retailer.
Weird Al's White and Nerdy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
the government continually tells us the economy is strongest ever. meanwhile, GE has become a junk bond, tech stocks did a mini-crash, and GAP closing a bunch of stores is a significant sign of what is happening in shopping malls - where a huge number of Apple stores are.
something very odd is happening to the economy.
This should be obvious.
they're a major clothing retailer and this looks like a sudden collapse. It's an overall bad sign for the economy. Clothing has such crazy high profit margins you can't even blame this on the high cost of malls. Clothing was the one hold out for them.
/.ers not getting laid aside lots of us have kids. Even if you don't you need the next generation of kids to get education and jobs and drive the economy so you're 401k doesn't collapse.
Also, I saw an article that made a good point, the retail apocalypse is going to wreck property taxes. All those shops pay taxes, and that pays for schools. Get ready for your property taxes to go up or for your schools to collapse. And jokes about
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Spend my nights with a roll of bubble wrap
POP POP! Hope no one sees me gettin' freaky!"
There. Now it's nerd relevant.
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