Gap May Need to Close More Stores, Again

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Gap May Need to Close More Stores, Again

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Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) has had to close many stores in the past, especially those of its flagship brand. The brand is in trouble again. As same-store sales fall, Gap faces the store count problem once more.

The company announced:

Net sales were $4.1 billion, an increase of 8% compared with last year. Excluding the presentation changes from the adoption of the new revenue recognition standard, net sales increased 4% compared with last year.

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The translation of foreign currencies into U.S. dollars positively impacted the company’s net sales for the second quarter of fiscal year 2018 by about $23 million1. Second quarter net sales details appear in the tables at the end of this press release.

But same-store sales were choppy across its brands:

Old Navy Global: positive 5% versus positive 5% last year
Gap Global: negative 5% versus negative 1% last year
Banana Republic Global: positive 2% versus negative 5% last year

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The last time Gap closed stores was to shift efforts to Old Navy. In 2017, Gap closed over 200 Gap and Banana Republic stores. It said it would open about 270 Old Navy and Athleta locations.

So far 2018 looks like a carbon copy of 2017. Gap may be unable to support all of its stores, at least if it wants the brand to make money.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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