Executive Summary
This report is an analysis of the performance of Gap Inc.’s new brand Hill City competing in men’s jerseywearcategory. The report makes several recommendations regarding strategies to be employed on sales and new product offerings. To arrive at the said recommendations, a detailed analysis of primary and secondary information available in various sources has been undertaken. The report recommends procuring a new design with dark colours and a slim fitting category. The company is expectedto maximise salesin the large and medium categories of the bestselling polo shirts. Further, Hill City is encouraged to embark on a new strategy that incorporates an aggressive online marketing and sales strategy. It is also recommendedthat the firm increaseits physical stores in order to effectively compete with other brands. These proposed strategies will help Gap Inc.’s Hill City reach its desired level in performance.
1. Introduction
The current report presents a detailed analysis of GapInc.’s new brand labelled Brand Hill City. The planning process will be derivedfrom an understanding of the competitor’s ranges, present trends, and the consumers targeted by the Brand Hill City label. The report also intends to highlight missed opportunities as well as gaps in the new brand’s range. Further, the report looks at price, colour, fashionability, and story along with the identified measures to best understand the appropriate and poor sellers in the range. Using the report, together with the commercial awareness of buyers, new trading actions and ranges will be recommended. Particularly, the report will advance the use of in-season, open to buy budget that maximises the sales performance for the new label.
2. Brand Profile
Gap Inc., henceforth Gap, was incorporated in 1988 as a retail apparelorganisation and its headquarter is in San Francisco (Ugolini, 2017). The firm provides accessories, personal care goods and services, apparel for women, men, and children. It operates under several other brands including the Banana Republic, Athleta, Gap, Old Navy, and Intermix. It offers its products to consumers through online websites owned by the brands and also through third-party affiliates that give logistical support. The firm is knownforr6xyi its ability to bridge the gap between online and physical stores. The company has stores in 43 countries with more than 3100 stores, about 400 franchise stores, and several e-commerce sites (Lee, 2017).
3. Store Audit
Gap operates majorly from its online as well as physical stores. As the consumer slowly moves to the online platform, physical stores are slowly losing the battle, yet the physical stores remain a crucial part of the brand because presence generates sales. As such, Gap uses their physical stores as the main base for showcasing their products. In terms ofvisual merchandising, online platforms such as www.gap.comare dividedinto categories in order to enable the customer to enjoy the easeof use and to complement physical stores. Individual brands are creative in showcasing their products to include clearance offers, seasonal offers, and loyalty presentations (Zamani et al., 2018). Because of the nature of online stores, customer service is top notch with online customer representative reliability and a follow-upthe teamon every purchase.
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