There’s something about walking into an Abercrombie & Fitch store that leaves a bad taste in my mouth; a taste that slightly resembles a potent cocktail of the date rape drug, Keystone Light and a foolish sense of belonging. Not just a clothing brand, Abercrombie professes to be a lifestyle of inherent preppiness, capricious coed mingling and mischievous homoeroticism. Basically, the American Dream — plus or minus a few $70 “distressed” (read: falling apart) t-shirts.
Recently, the Abercrombie brand expanded its misguided bravado into Japan’s Ginza District. And here’s a shocker: the Japanese aren’t fans either. Apparently charging double the US prices, greeting customers in English and staffing no “authentic” Japanese salespeople does not a successful business make. Though, when you’ve got a shoddy business model to work from (aka one whose success is on a rapid decline on its home turf), can you really be expected to do well abroad?
Full Disclosure: I worked at Abercrombie for about a month in college, where we were actually told to ignore customers who asked for help and berate older people who wanted us to turn down the music. True story.
Posted by Amelia
I have never been a fan. But since you worked there, did they have sabout certain “types” of customers?
Haha do you remember the video about employees stealing? It had the whole ‘lifestyle’ part at the beginning and was just hilarious how the guy talked: ‘A&F represents a lifestyle’ and all that. That video would be great to have to just laugh at.
See the latest post on my site. It’s all about the expansion.
I’m kinda surprised at no Japanese at the JAPANESE store. Certainly they hired British at the British store. And I’m sure people of the relevant descent work at the now 5 Hollister stores in Europe.
They attempted the price jump in Europe too, and failed. UK price was essentially double at first, and they attempted to block UK visitors from ordering on-line to get the US price.
I worked there for about 3 months like 2 years ago and I do remember being told to really not do much. Not ignore customers, but greet them when they come in and when they leave. That was it. Most of the time I was at the door greeting and that was all, and sometimes folding clothes, but that was NOT a requirement of the job. Just made the time pass by.
The thing about the ‘lifestyle’ is its a phase that many ‘kids’ go through, and it mostly ends after high school if you ask me. I am a junior in college and I might be one of the few people who wears it more often than not (although a lot of my clothes from A&F and Hollister is at least a year old). Maybe they’ll kill off A&F now that they killed RUEHL? Hollister is the most profitable brand, and it’s because it’s A&F minus $10, and they have more sizes than A&F.
Did I hate the job? No. I obviously just wish I got paid more. And I was pretty okay with working only once or twice a week since I had another ‘serious’ job anyway.