Dear New Gap CEO: Here's How To Fix Your Stores

A while back we asked the readers to tell us what was wrong with Gap, INC. Since we asked, they’ve sh*tcanned their CEO, closed a chain of stores, launched new ad campaigns featuring celebrities, rethought their merchandise and…nothing has has helped.

The business continues to hemorrhage money. Starting today Gap, INC. has yet another new CEO, and this one has no apparel experience.

Here at Consumerist, we’re pro-success. In the spirit of a new beginning, we thought we’d let Glenn “Stop The Bleeding” Murphy, Gap’s new CEO, know what he needs to do to fix the Gap.

These comments were all written by you, the shopper. If Glenn wants to turn it around, he’d better listen up.

How To Fix The Gap

by The Customers Of The Gap

• “Stop charging so much for the same shit you sell at old navy for 50% of the price.”

• “Old Navy/Gap seem to have boring clothes, costing more than the more interesting things I find elsewhere. I’d rather have a clearance designer shirt from Lord & Taylor, than an overpriced plain t-shirt from The Gap.”

• It seems to me to be a combination of allowing Old Navy to sell extremely similar items for much less and also offering a selection that pales in comparison to that same store. Though I have to say, I’ve been enjoying my Old Navy options less and less these past couple of years, and the quality has seemed to decline dramatically. Perhaps that’s why Old Navy isn’t doing that well either.

• The prices are high for teens and young adults without the cachet of the Abercrombie or AE or BR label/logo. For the last few seasons, they have featured a lot of boring colors. Tans, washed-out stuff, browns, blah. Plus, I can get a similar polo shirt for a fraction of the price (for my sons) at Old Navy.

• You can try on 6 different pairs of the same jeans in the same size, length and cut and all 6 pairs will fit differently – that kind of piss-poor quality control is why I stopped shopping at the Gap. The marketing onslaught for skinny jeans when maybe .01% of the female population actually look good in them sealed the deal. (I stopped shopping at Old Navy as well when it became clear that ultra-ultra-ultra low-rise was their starting point). I guess I’m at the age where I realize that shelling out $50 for crappy fitting clothes makes less financial sense than shelling out $80 for clothes that fit well and will stand the test of time.

• The only reason to shop there is to be able to brag to someone else that I got this at the Gap! Same shit for half the price at Target. Plus I do most of my cloths shopping twice a year at Costco. Name brand CK, Polo, Ralph Lauren etc. and the most expensive items are still under $30.00 there.

• I’ve found that the jeans I’ve bought there in the past went threadbare before Levi’s of a similar age would have been broken in. Also bought the only shirts I’ve ever managed to wear out the elbow of, while working a desk job.

• Last time I went into a Gap store there seemed to be about twenty employees there.

  None of whom seemed to want to help me, despite my polite requests.

• Low-quality fabrics, unflattering cuts, boring clothes. Also, they still make flare jeans (I’m not talking boot-cut, which are fine, but like bad retro flare). Too many whiskers and such on them as well.

• The whole sweatshop thing bothered me when it broke a few years ago, and aside from getting $5-10 shirts and pants from the sales rack, the stuff is far overpriced.

  I have a hard time shopping there without a guilty conscience.

• the fit at everything at the gap is RIDICULOUS! the “small” clothing has larger measurements than a “large” at clothing companies that are doing well, like american apparel. everything at the gap is short, wide, and has a “belly pouch” sewn in (ie, extra fabric so that giant bellies can hang loose). the only clothing that is fitted somewhat well with a range of sizes and fits is the women’s pants.

• Why shop at The Gap when I can get the same quality (and better work clothes styles) at Old Navy? Or when I can go some place like Macy’s or Nordstrom’s and pay the same amount for better quality?

  On a related note, I had to laugh a few months back when they raised the prices on their skirts ~$10 and had them “on sale” for the old price.

• I love the Gap’s clothes. I hate the Gap’s prices.
  We all know that the third-world value of those clothes are like $7 — why charge $79.99 for a fucking sweater?

• I think the GAP has just lost its way. The GAP started as a place for everyone to shop-it was the place to bridge the generation gap. It offered basic, good quality clothes that most anyone could and would wear at reasonable prices.

  Now they don’t seem to know who they are, half of the clothes are too young and too trendy and the other half are really boring and frumpy. And all of them are far too expensive relative to the quality and what you find at other stores.

  I also think there are just too many GAP stores – there is absolutely nothing special about going into a GAP, it’s about as special as a neighborhood gas station.

• To me, everything they sell in the GAP looks like something I might have worn or considered cute back in 1992.

• Frankly, the middle market is disappearing. Just as the gap between rich and poor widens, most consumers are shopping either significantly more upmarket or more downmarket. There were actually days when wearing clothes from the GAP was really very hip, and the clothes were not any more expensive than they are today.

  Nowadays, the cachet clothes cost easily two or three times more than comparable clothes from the GAP. Consumers with the cash are shopping at higher end labels, and consumers with less money are not going to shell out money that will stretch their finances for brands that do not have the cachet they once held. They’ll buy clothes from Old Navy, H&M, or Zara.

• I lost faith the day they hired Sarah Jessica Parker to shill the Gap.

  Her face looks like a foot.

• I worked at an Old Navy for two years, and during that time, I only used my employee discount to buy things at Gap. Why? Because Old Navy’s jeans felt like sandpaper and their graphic tees (which are basically the only kind of shirt I wear) looked like they were designed by a 12-year-old who just learned Photoshop.

• As a 29 year old female who does a lot of shopping, I have to say the Gap is one boring ass place to shop.

• As for Old Navy….my cousin bought me a nice blue sweater with a red stripe running horizontally across the chest. Two washes later the red stripe ran pink and red all over the sweater. I’ll stick to Macy’s and JC Penny’s.

• I hate the Gap and Old Navy because, as several other people have noted, they plaster their names/logos all over their shirts (especially Old Navy) and I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for the privilege of serving as a walking billboard for a multinational corporation.

• I hate the Gap because of that BS Audrey Hepburn commercial. That, and the Lyrcra in everything. Just try to buy a pair of non-Lycra jeans at the Gap. I dare you.

To Summarize (We know CEOs are busy):

Gap sells boring, low quality clothes at prices that are not competitive. The customer service is poor. The materials used are substandard compared to what can be purchased for the same amount of money at other retailers. The sizes are inconsistent. The styles are either boring or too trendy with nothing in between.

The brand isn’t well-regarded, and is not worth paying a premium to own. Gap, INC. logos on clothing are embarrassing to wear. The spokespeople are annoying.

Sounds like you have your work cut out for you, Glenn. Good luck!