![]() ![]() “The Gap’s failure is all about its lack of leadership,” said Mark Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University’s business school. Sonia Syngal took over from Peck in 2020. (DIS) executive Paul Pressler, drugstore executive Glenn Murphy and Gap veteran Art Peck. The company then rotated through several CEOs, including former Disney It suffered 24 straight quarters of same-store sales declines toward the end of his reign, and he stepped down in 2002. First the president of the Gap division and later CEO of the company beginning in 1995, Drexler pushed Gap to expand beyond jeans into khakis and oversaw the creation of budget-chain Old Navy in 1994.īut it was also during Drexler’s tenure Gap lost its connection to its core customers. ![]() Mickey Drexler, known as the “merchant prince,” was the person who built Gap into a powerhouse during the 1990s. Whoever becomes Gap’s new leader won’t be the first of its CEOs to face challenges. Old Navy and Athleta are its future: Combined, they will represent about 70% of Gap’s total sales by 2023, the company says. What’s more, the flagship brand is increasingly less significant to the company. Its initiatives “have been piecemeal rather than part of a coherent grand plan of reinvigoration,” Neil Saunders, an analyst at GlobalData Retail, said in a note to clients Monday. But the partnership hasn’t meaningfully lifted sales. Gap has tried several strategies to revitalize its flagship brand, including a partnership with Kanye West for a line of Yeezy-branded clothing. Gap also cannibalized its own brand with similar styles at Old Navy and Banana Republic, he added: “It was smart the way they built out their portfolio, but even those created its own form of competition to the Gap brand.” “Gap was competing against department stores and killing them.” “When they were great, there just wasn’t the ecosystem of smaller, niche players,” said Ken Pilot, a former president of Gap and a longtime executive at the company. Direct-to-consumer brands online have also chipped away at the Gap’s audience. (TGT) and fast-fashion sellers H&M and Zara lured away the Gap’s denim shoppers. Over the decades since the mall-store heyday, Gap fell out of touch with Baby Boomers who grew up on the brand and failed to attract Gen Z and Millennials who drive fashion trends today, analysts say.Īt the same time, brands and retailers such as Levi, Target Gap said in 2020 that it would close 30% of its Gap and Banana Republic stores in North America by 2024 - mostly in malls. Malls have been rapidly losing customers to online shopping and big-box stores. So its fortunes have largely been tied to those of malls - great news in the ’90s, but awful news now. The Gap rode the expansion of suburban malls in the 1980s and 1990s, becoming one of the largest mall stores in the United States. Here’s what the next CEO will fall into at Gap She will be replaced by an interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent leader. On Monday, the company announced CEO Sonia Syngal would step down after less than three years. The company’s other brands, including Old Navy and Banana Republic, have also struggled. has you covered, from the cradle to the grave,” the New York Times said in 1992.īut sales at the flagship Gap brand have slumped for years and it has become an afterthought for many American shoppers. “As ubiquitous as McDonald’s, as centrally managed as the former Soviet Union and as American as Mickey Mouse, the Gap Inc. Here's whyĪt the time it was a symbol of cool and casual style. Carts are brought into a Target store on in Miami, Florida. ![]()
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