Note: AEO's FY'24 ended on February 1, 2025
American Eagle Outfitters is a leading specialty apparel retailer that operates under the American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) and Aerie brands. The retailer designs, markets, and sells its own brand of high-quality, on-trend clothing, accessories, and personal care products at affordable prices, while targeting 15-25-year-old customers. Through its Aerie brand, the company offers a collection of intimates and personal care products for girls. Aerie emphasizes comfort rather than glamor when it comes to women's lingerie.
Most of American Eagle's retail presence is confined to the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Hong Kong. In addition to this, it operates web-based stores for its different brands, through which it ships its merchandise to 81 countries across the world.
American Eagle's lingerie and activewear brand, Aerie, has gone from strength to strength, driving sales growth for the company. It's opening more stores, which gives it a chance to gain on Victoria's Secret. While Victoria's Secret remains the industry leader with $6.2 billion (in 2024) in annual sales (compared to $1.8 billion of Aerie's revenue), at its current rate of decline and Aerie's accelerating growth, the two retailers could cross trajectories sooner rather than later. In addition, the demand for Aerie's products has also contributed to AEO's sales, margins, and profitability in recent quarters. Also, smooth progress on Real Power and Real Growth value-creation plan aided results.
With the rise of internet shopping, digital revenues as a share of the total revenues for American Eagle have been on the rise, accounting for 37% of the company's overall revenues in FY 2024. The US apparel industry is gradually shifting towards omnichannel retailing, which refers to providing a seamless shopping experience across stores and online channel. This is becoming an inevitable move for U.S. apparel retailers, including American Eagle, which is working hard to develop its omnichannel platform and has shown significant progress so far. As is the case with other apparel retailers, AEO is gradually shrinking its store count, and focusing more on the high-margin e-commerce channel. This lends credence to its decision to develop its omnichannel presence by investing in digital marketing and improving its website and mobile app.
The U.S. teen apparel market is currently highly promotional, where each retailer is trying to outsmart the other one with a broader and deeper set of products. As a result, U.S. buyers have shown low brand loyalty as they have been readily shifting to brands that provide relevant fashion at affordable prices. This trend has helped the growth of fast-fashion companies such as Gap Inc, Urban Outfitters, Zara, and H&M. On the other hand, companies such as American Eagle Outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Aeropostale have been at the receiving end of this trend.
While American Eagle's core products have struggled, its limited fashion range has found good acceptance among customers. As a result, the company is looking to strengthen this product category with more innovation in distinct finishes, fabrics, and washes. The company is looking to shift its product portfolio from basic to fashion gradually and has already seen some success. American Eagle is planning to simplify its design system to respond to changing customer tastes quickly and effectively. It is removing layers within its designing teams, reorganizing the structure to implement direct accountability, and enhancing its speed sourcing capabilities. One such development on this front is the retailer's fast-track fashion capsules, whose designing to in-store receiving process takes just 60 days. By effectively leveraging these factors, the company will be able to increase the proportion of fashion products in its portfolio.
American Eagle Outfitters sees huge potential in its relatively new brand, Aerie. The company is looking to capitalize on the lack of competition in the young women's intimates specialty format. About 15% of the total female population in the U.S. is between the ages of 15 and 24. The overall lingerie market in the U.S. stands well over $12 billion and is currently dominated by only a few established brands. The encouraging trend is that U.S. buyers have continued to spend on intimate products even during the sluggish economic environment. With the right push, we believe that Aerie can follow in the footsteps of Victoria's Secret. The brand can fend off the fierce competition in the intimate market as its products are affordable and more about usability than glamour.
The apparel market in the U.S. is highly saturated and competitive, with a large number of established brands. Moreover, sluggish economic growth has been a big worry for the entire industry. Last year, in particular, apparel retailers struggled to achieve positive growth as cautious consumer spending and changes in spending patterns have weighed on sales. Given the situation in the U.S., exploring opportunities in international markets is warranted. It will not only open new revenue channels for the company but will also help diversify the business risk geographically. With slightly better macroeconomic conditions and lesser competition, international markets might provide American Eagle with the opportunity to operate more full-priced sales.
With e-commerce not turning into a big business for many retailers despite continued robust growth, the need for omnichannel retailing has emerged. The entire apparel industry is gradually shifting towards this concept, which appears to be the future of retailing. Over the past couple of years, American Eagle has taken several steps toward the development of its omnichannel platform, and all of them have shown good promise so far. Its "buy online and ship from the store" pilot program has helped it attract those customers, who could have shied away from the retailer if the inventory pool wasn't integrated across all the channels. The initial rollout was slow, but the company soon became aggressive in its deployment.
Also, American Eagle has improved its delivery time significantly, and it now delivers products in two days or less to more than 90% of its customers. In addition, American Eagle has several other projects planned that are intended to optimize the shopping experience across online and mobile channels. It is in the process of adding new features to its website, including a 360-degree product view and an on-body product display. The company is relaunching an updated version of its mobile app that will now run faster and have a better interface.
All these efforts, along with the anticipated growth in online apparel sales, are likely to help American Eagle improve its store productivity.
American Eagle’s partnerships with Sweeney and Kelce highlight the work the retailer is doing to stay relevant with consumers and cut through the noise as spending remains soft.
It’s also facing stiff competition from peers like Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, and Levi’s. In mid-2025, Gap launched its “Better in Denim” campaign featuring Katseye and Kelis’s 2003 hit “Milkshake.” Meanwhile, Levi’s has had an ongoing campaign featuring Beyoncé, while Abercrombie has taken a sports focus and partnered with the NFL.
