Abercrombie & Fitch 1997 Annual Report Download - page 5

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Abercrombie &Fitch Co.
One year ago abercrombie.com was receiving 150,000 hits per month—the site now
garners better than 2.5 million hits per month and has emerged as a dynamic and interac-
tive brand-building tool.
Our market focus dictates a uniquely interactive relationship with our customers. Each of
the over 2,000 e-mails we receive every month, filled with suggestions, comments, and
insight, is responded to personally, creating an open forum of communication.
Our merchants, marketers, and designers travel to college campuses and hot spots all
over the country seeing and talking to our customers—we know what they wear, listen to,
read, watch, how they spend their time, what’s hot, and what’s not. It’s a relationship that
empowers the Abercrombie brand with credibility, an elusive quality to our competitors,
a quality that intensifies the value of the brand.
ABERCROMBIE & FITCH IS POSITIONED FOR LONG-TERM GROWTH As previously
mentioned, our expansion plan limits store growth to a disciplined 20% each year, a strategy
designed to prevent dilution of the brand.
Our ability to make the Abercrombie lifestyle relevant and meaningful in the lives of our
customers comes, in part, from our unique ability to vertically integrate. Unlike many of our
competitors, we control every aspect of our brand and can direct each detail consumers come
in contact with, from the greeting they receive at the door, to the music they hear in-store.
Perhaps more than any other one factor, quality sets A&F apart. Our tradition of pro-
ducing the highest quality goods adds built-in value to everything we do. Key factory
relationships translate into the most profitable quality/price relationship in the industry,