The Ask

The first step in this process was dealing with research of the market and how it’s current state would impact the forecasted improvement for the year. We started with researching three main concerns the current state of Abercrombie & Fitch, what it’s competitors were looking like, and finally the overall state of the segment and what governmental impacts would have for the market. This led us to project an increase of 4.5% across the final six months of the fiscal year.

After the increase was decided upon we took our overall increase and looked upon each month individually and events and changes in the week cycle would impact key months. Our research indicated the need to focus on big improvements in December and a reduced November due to the falling of Black Friday.

The Assortment plan was a key part in the process as this was one of the main ways of effecting a sales plan. This required more research into strengths within the store, key items for the brand, and trend analysis for the upcoming year. Through this research my team identified the key component for the assortment plan would be tops due to natural trends in Fashion and Jeans as a second big contributor due to the history of Abercrombie & Fitch and general yearly performance.