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Abercromie & Fitch

Abercrombie and Fitch Co. (« A&F ») is an international fashion retailer selling apparel, fragance and luxury products to young customers. The brand describes itself as « casual luxury ».
They developed a strong brand image based on provocative communication and specific in-store experience that fits with the cool lifestyle it promotes. However, sales have been dropping for years and do not seem to be going in the future. In 2013, the firm closed about 220 mall stores and entering December 2014, profits were expected about $106 milions, less than half of what they had been in 2012.
Fitch’s performance is declining fastly, and it can be explained through internal and external factors. Some of these factors include lack of sustainable competitive advantage, public relation issues that affected the brand’s identity and image, rise of fast fashion competition and its struggle with its brand position and pricing while the consumers’ preferences are changing. Through examining these various elements, it is clear that Abercrombie and Fitch must take a diverse approach in order to revitalize its brand and maintain profitability.

First of all, one of the main internal issues that led to Fitch’s decline was their lack of sustainable competitive advantage. Indeed, A&F views brand image as its most important asset, and their postioning enabled them to set premium prices on their apparel. They lost their audience and brand image these past years ; in fact, the problem is that the « cool » college kids do not perceive A&F as trendy anymore. A better marketing information system is required to change that, evaluating customers tastes and needs evolution.
Besides of Fitch’s loss of competitive advantage, public relation disasters highly damaged firm’s image. In 2002, a racist T-shirt that disparaged Asian Americans led to negative

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