Abercrombie & Fitch Co. is explanding its digital presence across Asia.
The fashion retailer recently launched 10 new ecommerce sites for its Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister brands with the Demandware platform, serving China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. All of the sites are mobile-optimized through responsive web design.
Demandware provides a central platform for managing multiple sites, enabling the Abercrombie & Fitch corporate ecommerce team to maintain control over the brand experience, while working with regional resources to adapt the sites to the unique requirements of each geography.
“We selected Demandware because it’s a powerful, agile solution that enables us to get into new markets quickly without extensive overhead,” said Billy May, GVP of Digital and Direct-to-Consumer, Abercrombie & Fitch. “With Demandware, we gain the speed, agility and operational efficiencies of a cloud platform, with the merchandising control and international capabilities required to deliver a shopping experience that is true to our brands, and appropriately localized for each region.”
During its third-quarter earnings call in December, Abercrombie & Fitch COO Jonathan Ramsden said that though they were still in the early days of the site launches, the company had seen “a clear improvement in both conversion and traffic,” and that it did “particularly well” on Singles Day.
Then-CEO Michael Jeffries, who retired in December, said during the earnings call that comp sales were negative across almost all international markets, but were positive in China and improved from the second quarter. In China, the quarter also marked the opening of its first mall-based Abercrombie & Fitch store in Chengdu, which Jeffries said is performing strongly and encourages the retailer believe in the growth potential of both the Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister brands in China.
Abercrombie & Fitch is a global specialty retailer of apparel for men, women and kids across the Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie kids, and Hollister Co. and Gilly Hicks brands. At the end of the third quarter, Abercrombie & Fitch operated 834 stores in the US and 166 stores in Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.