Through price adjustments, Gap hopes to convey its latest positioning in China, a high cost-effective brand. In June this year, Gap announced a ten-year partnership with Yeezy founder Kanye West and will launch a joint clothing line Yeezy Gap in 2021.
One stone stirred up a thousand waves, and the long-term low-key Gap took this opportunity to return to the center of public opinion.
Almost at the same time, Chinese consumers discovered that Gap’s entire line of products had unknowingly made price adjustments, and the marked price range of all products had converged to Uniqlo. Great changes are undoubtedly brewing.
In the past half century, Gap has become an indispensable clothing brand in the daily lives of consumers around the world, and regular shopping at this retailer has become a habit of every family. Especially in the United States, where it was founded, this brand, founded by Donald and Doris Fisher in 1969, has been given an American family color from the beginning, and has laid a deep consumer emotional foundation over the years. So that Kanye West expressed his gratitude for returning to Gap in handwriting on the exterior of his redesigned Chicago Gap store.
However, when people regard Gap as a typical American family brand, they often forget that this brand has entered China for a full decade this year, adapting to this special and huge market in all aspects.
Over the past ten years, Gap has opened more than 200 stores in China, and at the same time, it has penetrated Chinese families by relying on businesses of all ages, including children’s clothing. At the Gap flagship store and China headquarters on Nanjing West Road, Shanghai, Chinese employees account for the vast majority of nearly 400 employees.
A year and a half ago, when Steven Sare, the newly appointed Gap Group’s Asian Retail Business Executive Vice President and General Manager of Greater China, came to China, this Gap veteran who started as the store manager of Banana Republic New York experienced the same culture as many people. Shocked. But more than that, he saw similarities between the United States and China.
Steven Sare’s systematic career path in the past three decades has shaped his understanding of retail and also predicted what he will do in the Chinese market.
The picture shows Steven Sare, Executive Vice President of Gap Group’s Asian Retail Business and General Manager of Greater China-The picture shows Steven Sare, Executive Vice President of Gap Group’s Asian Retail Business and General Manager of Greater China,
wrote in his official resume, “Leader in New York The Gap brand global merchandise team develops a quarterly global product line for customers around the world. He also served as the global chief merchandise officer of Uniqlo, and held senior product positions in companies such as Express and Pacific Sunwear. In Steven Sare in the Gap Group During work with other retail companies
His official resume reads like this, “Lead the Gap brand global merchandise team in New York, developing a quarterly global product line for customers around the world. He also served as the global chief merchandise officer of Uniqlo and worked in companies such as Express and Pacific Sunwear. Served as a senior position in product. During Steven Sare’s work at Gap Group and other retail companies, he effectively promoted the performance and efficiency of all aspects of product and merchandise operations. “
For a long time, people care about design and marketing, but underestimate merchandise. The importance of. Commodity operation is an art that consumers will never notice, but silently affect consumer behavior. Practitioners are well aware of its subtleties, but they are not good for outsiders.
Since the 1990s, Steven Sare has followed Mickey Drexler, known as the founder of contemporary retail and former CEO of Gap, in Gap, and has experienced the heyday of Gap. Together with him under the guidance of Mickey Drexler in the 1990s was former Chanel CEO Maureen Chiquet. These young people have now become the most important decision-makers in the fashion industry today. In her autobiography, she recalled Gap’s oral legend “Mickey Meeting”. The purpose of the meeting was to obtain product matching and procurement plans approved by Mickey Drexler, and his selection and prediction of best-selling styles had a nearly perfect hit rate.
Finding consumer behavior patterns in the complex information and then meeting consumer needs through the arrangement and combination of products is one of the most important intellectual heritage left over from the Mickey Drexler era. This kind of thinking not only drove American retail to a peak in the 1990s and millenniums, but it also has a profound impact on the retail world today.
Coinciding with the tenth anniversary of Gap’s entry into China, Steven Sare hopes to use Gap’s past decades of retail experience to continue to dig the moat of China’s business.