Teens Flee Abercrombie for Upstarts as Phones Top Malls

[Purveyor]

By Lindsey Rupp - Nov 11, 2013

Teens don’t shop the way they used to.

Where young consumers with spare cash once thronged the likes of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF) and American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (AEO) for clothing that telegraphed their identities, the new generation is poorer, shuns logos and socializes more on the Internet than at the mall. They’re also increasingly global fashion citizens, mixing garments from brands across the world that are now accessible from their smartphones.

The changing shopping patterns in what Piper Jaffray Cos. estimates is a $30 billion market are providing fertile ground for upstarts such as Brandy Melville USA, which relies more on Instagram followers than television ads. They’re also causing a drain from the established chains that have been slow to turn away from their expansive stores and uniform, all-American style that worked so well for so long.

“Everything gets old,” Allen Adamson, a managing director at Landor Associates, a San Francisco-based brand consulting firm, said in an interview. “They stayed on their game, but the market shifted.”

Abercrombie, American Eagle and Aeropostale Inc. (ARO) all are projected to have sales declines in the year ending in January after gains in the previous year. The chains’ shares also are lagging other retailers in 2013, with Abercrombie, American Eagle and Aeropostale all down more than 20 percent through Nov. 8, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Retailing Index gained 36 percent.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-11/teens-flee-abercrombie-for-upstarts-as-phones-top-malls.html

[TwilightGardener]

1. About 9 or ten years ago, I worked at a hospital with a young male college student

whose previous job was at Hollister (which I guess is part of Abercrombie--spinoff or something, like Old Navy is to the Gap). He told me that he sometimes folded clothes, but that the majority of the job was to hang around the front of the store and look good and model the clothes, to draw in high school wannabes. Doesn't seem surprising that the A and F enterprise is finally crashing down, with that in mind.

[bettyellen]

2. teen labels always crash and burn. the parent company will roll out something newer and slowly

phase out the old brand. They made a very good run of it, their appeal based a great deal on objectifying men's bodies. I was always surprised they didn't get more flack from men about that.

[NuclearDem]

3. Good, A&F's CEO is a damn bully anyway.

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. agreed.

[hatrack]

5. AKA "Karl Lagerfeld Circa 1990"