A&F Case Analysis
1. What were some if the business issues that retailers, like A&F, faced in the early and mid-1900? How have these issues changed over time?
According to the case, A&F was founded 116 years ago. It began as sporting goods store which selling expensive and exotic merchandise to adventures, presidents, businessmen, writers and movie stars. Throughout A&F’s early history, A&F did a good job keeping up with its customers and with changing fashions. But they still had its problems, some were typical of all retailers in that period, and some were not. During 1940’s, it was difficult to import goods from abroad because of the war. And the government also gave limitations during that time, one year, the office of Price Administration placed limits on civilian consumption of rubber products. This affected A&F’s selling on golf ball in that time. So retailers asked customers to do their Christmas shopping early in November. Also the lack of manpower in postal services caused delays. Because most of the retailer do the catalog and mail-orders by then.
2. Argument: support for the statement made by the CEO of A&F. Indicate why you think Jeffries is correct.
In this case, we think A&F have the right to require their employees to promote an ‘all-American’ image on the sales floor.
A&F has a certain image that it is trying to sell, they have a certain buyer group to target.
People always said that inner beauty of an individual is what really counts; but in the corporate world; this is not true. Why is this not true? Because outer beauty and sex is what sells. Customers need to be attracted to the store in order for the store to make good sales. The key to attracting customers to a store is advertisement. It needs to advertise what the store is trying to sell; in the case of Abercrombie and Fitch, it is an image. Therefore it would want to hire the best looking people it could find to work on its sales floor to fit that image. The sales associates are part of that store and
According to the case, A&F was founded 116 years ago. It began as sporting goods store which selling expensive and exotic merchandise to adventures, presidents, businessmen, writers and movie stars. Throughout A&F’s early history, A&F did a good job keeping up with its customers and with changing fashions. But they still had its problems, some were typical of all retailers in that period, and some were not. During 1940’s, it was difficult to import goods from abroad because of the war. And the government also gave limitations during that time, one year, the office of Price Administration placed limits on civilian consumption of rubber products. This affected A&F’s selling on golf ball in that time. So retailers asked customers to do their Christmas shopping early in November. Also the lack of manpower in postal services caused delays. Because most of the retailer do the catalog and mail-orders by then.
2. Argument: support for the statement made by the CEO of A&F. Indicate why you think Jeffries is correct.
In this case, we think A&F have the right to require their employees to promote an ‘all-American’ image on the sales floor.
A&F has a certain image that it is trying to sell, they have a certain buyer group to target.
People always said that inner beauty of an individual is what really counts; but in the corporate world; this is not true. Why is this not true? Because outer beauty and sex is what sells. Customers need to be attracted to the store in order for the store to make good sales. The key to attracting customers to a store is advertisement. It needs to advertise what the store is trying to sell; in the case of Abercrombie and Fitch, it is an image. Therefore it would want to hire the best looking people it could find to work on its sales floor to fit that image. The sales associates are part of that store and