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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?
Uh...khakis.
Will gap shutdown before sears?
Gap.
That's what "gap" stands for: Great Looking Pants.
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.
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.
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
Clothing store: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I agree. There appears to be a bigger pattern going on: many brick-and-mortar stores are closing. I don't know if it will increase total unemployment, but it will be disruptive to millions of people, especially older people who have difficulty changing careers due to agism etc.
It's argued the "Digital Revolution" is (or will be) as disruptive to society as the industrial revolution was. Somebody who had been farming for 3 decades had difficulty changing into a factory worker. Nobody really knows where the "new jobs" will be to replace the many lost to the The Web and factory bots.
Trump is a symptom of this displacement anxiety. However, he blames it on outsiders instead of the real cause: tech-driven change.
Table-ized A.I.
And realized the crap they sell at The Gap is the same crap they sell at Old Navy, just with the higher mark up.
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.
Weird Al's White and Nerdy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And in the industrial revolution the world was a lot less crowded than it is now. There was always the option to go and be a farmer somewhere else. OK, there were already people there who weren't too happy about that, but that created another kind of employment opportunity. At one hundred yards, volley fire ...
It's win-win. Well, not so much for those on the receiving end of the volley.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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
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