The shirts Probably made in China..?
Abercrombie is a luxury brand that’s not known for long lasting goods. The Great Quarantining is going to make consumers less interested in buying such goods and they’re sitting on top of months of unsold inventory....
Amazon and Chine has completely destroyed Brick&Mortar retail. All the biggies like JCP/Macys and others are filing BK or very close. Amazon’s and China’s next target will be Walmart.
For example (ignoring sales tax), make a $100 purchase, and that $20 Kohl's Cash reduces the cost to $80. Seems straightforward.
But anyone with a Kohl's credit card (required to earn and use their Kohl's Cash) is almost certainly going to use a discount coupon. That's when the value of the Kohl's Cash becomes less than its stated value.
Back to the $100 purchase, say you also have a 20% off discount coupon in addition to the $20 Kohl's Cash. Your first thought might be the 20% discount would lower the price to $80, then applying the $20 Kohl's Cash would lower the final cost to $60. Nope.
With Kohl's, the Kohl's Cash is applied first, then the discount coupon. So, $100 minus $20 leaves $80. 20% off of $80 leaves $64. In short, the face value of the Kohl's Cash is reduced by whatever discount coupon you are using.
I say to my sons about A&F
Only girls and homo’s wear A&F stuff.
Same for Hollister
Because the second discount is a big **FLASH** of 35%, but only applied to an already reduced price.
35% off $100 is one thing, 35% off $1 is a lot less money.
a very old sales trick.
All the physical stores are sitting on tons of unsold inventory, and they all know that whoever offers the best deal when reopening occurs will get the sale.
A&F is all about fads and trends, and their clothing styles “age” very quickly. What what “hot” last month is completely passe today. With all the restrictions on people going out and shopping (i.e. they can’t right now), A&F has piles of inventory that is costing them money, and which is probably already obsolete. Plus, a lot of what they’re selling is probably unsold winter inventory like sweaters, sweatshirts, long pants etc that normally would have been bought during the cold weather, but without any shoppers it sat on the shelves. Since the weather is now warm, no one is going to buy it.
Retail businesses have three price mind sets. One is the cost of the item. Another is the need of the business to break even so the price is considered to cover the cost. And the third is a desire to improve on the business using profits and make additional profits.
If you are a business that just wants to break even, and the guy you lease the building decides to want a vacation to Tahiti next year, you’ll see a price increase on your rent. You have three choices: move to another facility, lay off an employee, or charge more for your product or service. And if the demand for it is good, the public will accept it. And everyone in the line from the farmer to the grocery store has a balance of need so if anyone changes the price, it dominoes.
Right now, demand for products is low as they aren’t being used. Everyone is in their pajamas at home. But that doesn’t help the supplier who has mouths to feed and employees to pay. So they take that 100% markup and drop it to 35%, try to sell volume, and maybe offer people in the line a temporary wage cut in lieu of layoff, until the state allows the release of the people and the product can be sold and the people get their wages back....or jobs.
But get ready, those on sale items will go up 160% to make up for lost profits or cost of goods. Alpha/omega. At the end of the year, the businesses need to reach their goals or they may close. There goes your retail choice. And the governors that made these choices for you will get their clothes anyway as they are overpaid to begin with. Our supply of their actions (governors) is greater than the demand, also.
rwood
Their cost on that $59 shirt is under $5, so even with a doubled discount they might scrape by with enough money to keep paying their gigantic mall rents. Most “mall chains” won’t - and I expect a horrific collapse in commercial real estate values over the next 12-18 months.
Plenty of Abercrombie clothing on sale at my local thrift shop for at least 95% off.
I think you are seeing a reflection of reduction in overhead combined with inventory they want to move more quickly. I see deals like this all the time at end o season. Heck, I am wearing a shirt right now with one of see deals.
I am getting daily emails with the same types of math from other retailers.
A&F was, at one time, a high end outfitter with top quality merchandise. Teddy Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper and a host of others bought outdoor gear and guns from A&F over the decades the original company was in business. It would have been better to just let the name die.
As an aside, Griffin & Howe holds the old gun records for A&F and some other companies. If you have a European gun, particularly a JP Sauer or Francotte there’s a possibility it passed through A&F. I got photocopies of the original ledger entries, measurements and sales records of nice old 1920s German shotgun from G&H, for a fee of course.
Reaction from reading the first paragraph: “One, Two, Three, infinity.” Sounds like the author would make a good Hottentot.
They do the same thing at the Navy Exchange. And No nothing there is Cheap. $200.00 Vera Wang wallets. $69 Docker shorts for men.