Companies to Watch: The Gap and Nordstroms :: essays research papers fc

I chose to research two very different apparel retail stores. The GAP, Inc. and Nordstrom, Inc. are very interesting companies to me because they reckon with something that is very important to me and a lot of people, clothes. Everyone buys and wears clothes, and these are two companies who have succeeded in this venture. They both started knocked out(p) with the uniform intentions, to sell apparel through curio stores, but at this point Nordstroms has been more successful.In theory these two companies are very similar because they are trying to accomplish the same thing. They both sell apparel, shoes and accessories for women, men and children through specialty and clearance stores. The clearance stores mentioned are Nordstrom Rack and GAP factory outlet stores. They also adjudicate the use of personalized customer service. The GAP and Nordstrom feel that good customer service is the way to keep customers happy and thus keep them loyal. Because of this, they have more employe es to serve their customers and spend a lot of time training these employees.These companies are also set up in the same way. They each have a chairman, president, and a couple of vice presidents. They both operate on the New York Stock Exchange. An other(a) interesting similarity is that they both are based out of the west coast, The GAP in San Francisco and Nordstrom in Seattle. But this is where the similarities end.The sizes of these two companies are very different. The GAP is a global retailer with about 3,700 stores and 166,000 employees worldwide. Nordstrom on the other hand has about 77 stores nationwide and 43,000 employees. It does operate one international boutique, Faconnable, mainly in Europe. The GAP has three brands including GAP, Banana Republic and Old Navy, solely operating in their own stores. Because of this huge difference in size, the GAP has much higher revenue than Nordstrom, but this doesnt mean that its a better company.In the news lately, the GAP has bee n under a lot of scrutiny because its sales have been down so much causing their computer address rating to lower as well. Investors feel that this is due to the sharp slowdown in consumer spending, growing competition and series of fashion misses. It has too many stores cleared to sustain this major hit on sales. They have very little debt, but analysts think that this combination spells a future bankruptcy.