American fashion brand Abercrombie & Fitch decided to close three flagship stores at once as part of optimizing their business. The A & F flagships in Italy and Japan will cease to work shortly, and the main store of Hollister brand in New York will also close.
At the same time, Abercrombie & Fitch are considering the possibility of closing part of large-format stores located in shopping centers. Instead, the fashion retailer will open smaller outlets in locations nearby. Also, A & F will conduct a program to upgrade existing stores, which will affect 85 stores.
Thanks to a new optimization program, by the end of 2019, Abercrombie & Fitch will increase the total number of stores with a simultaneous decrease in retail space, which will reduce rental costs. The new development program is being implemented against the background of weak brand performance: over the past quarter, comparable sales were lower than projected and increased by only 1%.
