Quote:
Originally posted by ZTAngel
I guess maybe this is coming from a marketing standpoint but I think what Express and Abercrombie are doing is just a bad, bad idea. Abercrombie and Express have their niche in trendy, moderately priced clothing for high schoolers and young adults. By upping the prices and not the quality, they lose their original market. The older clientele with more money would rather spend their $140 on jeans at Neiman Marcus. I don't know of anyone who would buy a $140 pair of Express or Abercrombie jeans. I have a feeling that this price increase is going to come back to bite these companies' in their butts.
|
I completely agree with this. And the problem is, even if they DO increase quality along with price, it's likely going to still come back to bite them in the ass -- because people see these stores as being moderately priced and not high quality. The average shopper is not going to realize right off the bat that the store IS increasing quality. Furthermore, the type of person who shops at moderately priced, medium-quality stores is often not the same type of person who shops at higher-priced, higher-quality stores. So the problem that these stores will have is that, without a large marketing campaign pushing their changing product, they're going to lose a lot of the customers that come there for the moderate stuff (because of the price change) without gaining a lot of the customers who shop at higher-end stores (because they don't know that the price/quality has changed).
Basically, I think that all these stores -- Express, A&F, the Limited, etc. -- need to realize that they're known for having a certain type of product and they should market to that. The only way I can see the whole price (and maybe subsquent quality) increase working is if
a) they do a whole company makeover from the ground up, complete with subsequent p.r. campaign -- as A&F did back in the day when it changed from selling, oh, hunting boots and such into selling teen/young adult clothes -- making it obvious that their product has changed, or
b) they do it very, very slowly, over the course of several years, where they're gradually, a few items at a time, upping the quality and price of the product.
Threaded Mode