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Gap to close all 81 stores in UK and Ireland

bbc.co.uk

11–20 of 139 posts

Re: Gap to close all 81 stores in UK and Ireland

#11

From a former Gap exec: > How did your time at The Gap shape your thinking about what you do at Herman Miller? > I interviewed a guy who became my head of digital. He had worked in retail, and he said, “Do you know what excites me most about coming to this industry? I feel like I’m going from making landfill to making heirlooms.” The fashion industry is the landfill industry.

The fast fashion industry is the landfill industry.

Re: Gap to close all 81 stores in UK and Ireland

#12
post #10

It sounds like a move made out of desperation. But personally I don't see them surviving the online marketplace long-term. At least in a mall your competition is limited to the local stores. Online, it's everyone. Want to offer cheap clothing? You are competing with everyone from H&M to Amazon Essentials ( https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/F8FB6F3C-F896-455C-BC52-7... ). Want to offer slightly better quality at slig…

Idk if that's really a big deal, they already compete at other prices with old navy and banana republic. Unless those are struggling brands too, that would be news to me.

Neither Old Navy nor Banana Republic really exist as brands in the UK.

Re: Gap to close all 81 stores in UK and Ireland

#15

The UK high street was struggling before Covid came along. I suspect it's going to be decimated when we come out of furlough.

Judging by all the signs up in windows, many retailers (and pubs/restaurants) seem to be struggling to find staff right now, at least in London. There can’t be that many retail workers still on the furlough scheme?

As of May, around 11.5m jobs are on furlough [1] with total labour force size of 35m [2]. This is slightly apples-to-oranges as one person can hold 2 jobs and be furloughed on both, but at face value it is about 1/3 of UK working population.

I heard an interview with Angela Leadsom that it is very difficult to take people off furlough. Many people found another job while also getting furlough pay and are resisting going back to work. Under UK labour laws the employer needs to accommodate employee needs with regards to health and safety. So if an employee says they would come off furlough but feel unsafe about the working environment, it is hard to resolve that.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1116638/uk-number-of-peo...

[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/labor-force-tota...

Re: Gap to close all 81 stores in UK and Ireland

#16
post #7

I wonder if this is a short-term strategy to force commercial property rents further down, and re-enter when they hit a feasible low. In India, GAP apparently uses their retail stores in an omnichannel strategy to "warehouse" products closer to customers in an attempt to provide next-day delivery. [1] [1] https://yourstory.com/2021/06/fashion-brands-omnichannel-fli... (paywalled, use reader-mode)

You might need to do that in India, in the UK it's so small relatively speaking that a couple of distribution centers in the right places can probably serve the entire country.

Re: Gap to close all 81 stores in UK and Ireland

#17

The UK high street was struggling before Covid came along. I suspect it's going to be decimated when we come out of furlough.

Judging by all the signs up in windows, many retailers (and pubs/restaurants) seem to be struggling to find staff right now, at least in London. There can’t be that many retail workers still on the furlough scheme?

That is partially (probably mostly) due to brexit - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/17/uk-faces-la... which is mostly being felt in hospitality and retail.

Re: Gap to close all 81 stores in UK and Ireland

#18

It sounds like a move made out of desperation. But personally I don't see them surviving the online marketplace long-term. At least in a mall your competition is limited to the local stores. Online, it's everyone. Want to offer cheap clothing? You are competing with everyone from H&M to Amazon Essentials ( https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/F8FB6F3C-F896-455C-BC52-7... ). Want to offer slightly better quality at slig…

Well, that doesn’t work for everyone, there are still some of us out here that would really like to try on clothes before we buy them. I hate having to return something that doesn’t fit, I don’t care how easy they try to make it, if I had tried it on at a retailer first, it would have saved us time, money, and effort.

Re: Gap to close all 81 stores in UK and Ireland

#19
post #10

It sounds like a move made out of desperation. But personally I don't see them surviving the online marketplace long-term. At least in a mall your competition is limited to the local stores. Online, it's everyone. Want to offer cheap clothing? You are competing with everyone from H&M to Amazon Essentials ( https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/F8FB6F3C-F896-455C-BC52-7... ). Want to offer slightly better quality at slig…

Idk if that's really a big deal, they already compete at other prices with old navy and banana republic. Unless those are struggling brands too, that would be news to me.

Old Navy and Banana Republic are both owned by Gap.

Re: Gap to close all 81 stores in UK and Ireland

#20
post #9

The UK high street was struggling before Covid came along. I suspect it's going to be decimated when we come out of furlough.

Primark will never die

It will probably die once all matter has been converted to Primark clothing and the Earth is nothing but a ball of thrown away hoodies and sunglasses. No further need for it then.
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