Recent Retail Week Knowledge Bank subscriber searches indicate strong interest in both Abercrombie & Fitch and sub-brand Hollister.

Despite latest available sales data qualifying neither for the UK’s Top 200, let no one doubt Retail Week Knowledge Bank’s responsiveness to demand.

Hence brand new profiles of both on our website. ‘Latest available’ perhaps needs explanation. The latest UK accounts in Companies House for each is for the year to the end of January 2010, with Abercrombie & Fitch’s sales through its single London flagship of £48.5m and Hollister sales through 10 stores by the end of that period of £44.8m.

Both sets of accounts were submitted only in late June this year – some 17 months after their year ends – thereby, doubtless, attracting maximum Companies House fines (nine months being the deadline) of £1,500.

Retail Week Knowledge Bank has, though, done its best to overcome the delays, estimating the two operations’ orders of sales for 2010/11, putting Hollister at about £90m with Abercrombie & Fitch on £60m. The latter total means the single, iconic West End flagship, with its almost routine queues for entry, achieved exceptional estimated densities of £4,600 per sq ft. Even Hollister, now numbering 19 outlets, is on an elevated £900 per sq ft. The profiles also examine the important implications of Abercrombie & Fitch’s premium UK positioning – and recently troubled – US operation, along with the Hollister equivalent.

In addition, issues addressed include disappointing UK profit performances hitherto for both, compared with fast-growing domestic UK competitors like Jack Wills, plus thoughts on the brands’ UK pitches for achieving sustained success in the fickle young fashion segment.  

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