How Is Guess Trying To Recover Its Sales In North America?
Though Guess’ second quarter results of fiscal 2018 (fiscal year ends in January) showed that the company is performing well driven by its strong growth in the European and Asian markets, yet the company’s performance remained weak in the Americas. Guess is gradually trying to reduce its footprints and increase profitability in America. The company is currently accelerating the reduction of its footprints in the U.S. markets which currently contributes to less than 36% of Guess’ global sales. The Americas are expected to represent only 25% of its business in the future. The company plans on achieving a 7.5% overall long term operating margin in the Americas. Towards this end, some of the steps that the company is recently undertaking are:
- Guess is striving to create a better balance between the American retail and wholesale businesses to reap more benefits from this changing trend.
- The company closed 18 stores in the U.S. and Canada in Q2 and it plans on closing a total of 70 stores in the Americas by this fiscal year end.
- Guess is also trying to improve its product offering in the region and this has been an ongoing process which will continue over the near future, as well. A lot of customer feedback is also being taken in order to synchronize the changing customer demands into its offerings.
- The online marketing is being boosted more than the traditional marketing with celebrity endorsements which is further helping in building the relevance for its brands. Along with that, marketing and promotions through emails and updating of its mobile applications are also some of the steps that the company took, recently. Guess is building its omni-channel capability, as well. It tied up with Amazon Prime in Q2 and has started partnering with Walmart’s Jet.com.
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