Gap Case Study the Company's

Gap Case Study The company's vision relied on making it easy for customers to find a pair of jeans in accordance with their needs and preferences. In order to achieve this, the Gap provided a wide variety of sizes and styles of jeans directed mostly towards teenagers. The company's mission is to provide affordable styles for all categories of customers, from celebrities to typical individuals. The objectives that the Gap intends to reach are represented by improving profitability, increasing profits and sales volume.

The Gap has developed and implemented an expansion strategy. The external expansion followed by the Gap is represented by franchising Gap and Banana Republic stores. In addition to this, the company started to successfully acquire different clothing lines, like Athleta. The company also focused its strategy on improving comparable-store sales. These activities were intended to help the company reach a stability situation that could allow the required investments with the company's expansion. 3. The company's business strategy is based on diversification. This means the company addresses a broad target of customers.

As mentioned above, the Gap is interested in addressing all categories of customers. Therefore, the company provides a wide variety of products that are intended to satisfy diversified needs and preferences. The differentiation strategy can also be observed by analyzing the brands provided by the company. The Gap brand provides a wide variety of high quality, casual and classic clothing items at moderate prices. This line is designed for men, women, and children, and features items from underwear to outerwear and personal care products.

The Old Navy brand provides family apparel, shoes, and accessories of casual style at higher prices. The Banana Republic brand provides clothing items, shoes, accessories, and personal care products for sophisticated customers that are interested in casual and tailored products. In this case, the prices are higher in comparison with those from the Gap brand. The Athleta brand provides high quality, stylish sportswear for women. The Piperlime brand provides a wide variety of shoes and accessories. 4. Competition from rival sellers The clothing industry in the U.S.

is highly fragmented, with numerous small retailers that hold very small market shares. However, it is the national chains that have the greatest market share in this industry. These are the Gap's most important competitors. TJX Companies is the leader of the clothing retailing industry. The company owns stores like T.J. Maxx discount stores, Marshall's discount department stores, HomeGoods decor stores, a.J. Wright stores, and others. The company addresses the markets in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, and Poland.

Another important competitor is represented by the Ross Stores, the second largest clothing retailers in the U.S. The competitive advantage of the Ross Stores is represented by the fact that they provide brand and designer products at moderate prices. In addition to this, the company owns several discount stores in the U.S. Another competitor in this industry is represented by Abercrombie & Fitch that mostly competes with the higher priced brands of the Gap because this retailer provides high quality, premium clothing items.

The American Eagle Outfitters is another important competitor of the Gap. This company focuses on online selling, but has also decided to increase the number of traditional stores it owns. Competition from potential new entrants to the industry The threat of new entrants is quite reduced in the U.S. clothing industry. This is because success in this industry depends on several important factors.

In this case, it is important to be able to provide a large number of similar stores in the proximity of the buyer because this is an important factor that affects customers' purchasing decision. The location of the retail stores is also very important. Some people consider that online clothing retailers are in the position of threatening the big players in this industry. However, this is not exactly the case. This is because most customers prefers to study the clothes they want to purchase.

Another important market entry barrier is represented by the financial resources that these companies require in order to build brand loyalty. Competition from producers of substitute products In this case, competition is represented by department stores, big-box stores, men's clothing stores, women's clothing stores, children's clothing stores, and others. Important department stores that the Gap must take into consideration are represented by the Federated Group, Sears, and JC Penney. Target and Walmart are important big-box stores that produce competition in this industry.

In addition to this, Internet retailing is an important competitor. Supplier bargaining power In this industry, suppliers do not benefit from great power. This is because they are rather fragmented.