Abercrombie & Fitch closes flagships, focuses on smaller stores

A change of course for Abercrombie & Fitch: the fashion chain is going to close three flagship stores. Its new focus will lie on smaller stores, while 85 stores will be revamped.

Plan of action

The doomed stores are located in Italy, Japan and New York (the latter a store of Abercrombie’s sibling Hollister). CEO Fran Horowitz thinks these huge stores are no longer what customers expect: they enjoy the atmosphere in the smaller stores. Certain bigger stores in shopping centres will also be closed and replaced with a smaller store nearby.

85 locations are planned to get a new store: sometimes replacing a larger store, but sometimes also completely new ones – but all of the smaller kind. At the end of the year, the retailer wants to have reduced its total floor space, but increased its number of stores. All of this is a response to the disappointing results the retailer announced last week: turnover only went up 1 % on a comparable base, less than the 1.4 % analysts were expecting. At the start of the fiscal year, the company still aimed for a growth between 2 and 3 %.