GAP and Walmart

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
babs
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Re: GAP and Walmart

Post by babs »

Brian Lutz wrote: September 5th, 2021, 9:40 pm
babs wrote: September 5th, 2021, 4:04 pm Now there are Banana Republic branded clothing items at Costco. Looks cheap and poorly made. Gap must be desperate.
Not necessarily. Costco is well known to source clothing from grey-market sources, and has been sued by product manufacturers for doing so in the past (notably by Omega Watches in 2010 in a lawsuit that was ultimately won by Costco.) It's also not unusual for said clothing to be factory seconds or overruns (the type of thing that might end up in factory outlet stores.) Here's an article about this:

https://www.mashed.com/165789/how-costc ... cted-item/

I know in the past I've bought Lucky Jeans from Costco, and it's not uncommon to see brands like Tommy Hilfiger or Polo show up on occasion as well.
These pants aren't gray market goods or overruns. Take a look at them next time you are at Costco. They're junk.
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Re: GAP and Walmart

Post by Brian Lutz »

babs wrote: September 5th, 2021, 11:12 pm
Brian Lutz wrote: September 5th, 2021, 9:40 pm
babs wrote: September 5th, 2021, 4:04 pm Now there are Banana Republic branded clothing items at Costco. Looks cheap and poorly made. Gap must be desperate.
Not necessarily. Costco is well known to source clothing from grey-market sources, and has been sued by product manufacturers for doing so in the past (notably by Omega Watches in 2010 in a lawsuit that was ultimately won by Costco.) It's also not unusual for said clothing to be factory seconds or overruns (the type of thing that might end up in factory outlet stores.) Here's an article about this:

https://www.mashed.com/165789/how-costc ... cted-item/

I know in the past I've bought Lucky Jeans from Costco, and it's not uncommon to see brands like Tommy Hilfiger or Polo show up on occasion as well.
These pants aren't gray market goods or overruns. Take a look at them next time you are at Costco. They're junk.
But the point is that it's very unlikely that Gap is deliberately selling their products in Costco stores.
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Re: GAP and Walmart

Post by Bagels »

Walmart began carrying US Polo Assn a year ago or so. The quality definitely is definitely cheapened (but so is the price - jeans tagged $19.99, instead of $80 that sell for $30-40 after coupons are stacked with sale prices) so I would expect the same for GAP.

Kinda sad - both produced quality stuff at one point.
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Re: GAP and Walmart

Post by Brian Lutz »

In my experience, it's rare to see US Polo Assn. stuff outside of places like Ross or TJMaxx, so Walmart doesn't seem to be too much off of that. Although the brand is licensed by the actual US Polo Association, it has always felt like they were trying to piggyback off the Polo Ralph Lauren brand.
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Re: GAP and Walmart

Post by Bagels »

Brian Lutz wrote: September 29th, 2021, 4:16 pm In my experience, it's rare to see US Polo Assn. stuff outside of places like Ross or TJMaxx, so Walmart doesn't seem to be too much off of that. Although the brand is licensed by the actual US Polo Association, it has always felt like they were trying to piggyback off the Polo Ralph Lauren brand.
US Polo Assn has been a staple at JCPenney and Sears for many years :). On my last visit to Sears (Black Friday Weekend 2019), the lion’s share of clothing within the men’s department was US Polo Assn. And it was pretty obvious that they were the manufacture for much of Sears’ private label (at the time).

No doubt they copy the PRL brand, but their stuff has always been decent quality. But what Walmart is selling is clearly a cheapened version.
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Re: GAP and Walmart

Post by storewanderer »

Wal Mart had some nice Swiss Tech winter clothing. When the coats got clearanced for $5-$10 down from $55-$65, it was a great deal. Some locations didn't bother to go down that low and tried to clearance at $30 and probably still have half a rack of those coats today.
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Re: GAP and Walmart

Post by Bagels »

storewanderer wrote: September 29th, 2021, 11:25 pm Wal Mart had some nice Swiss Tech winter clothing. When the coats got clearanced for $5-$10 down from $55-$65, it was a great deal. Some locations didn't bother to go down that low and tried to clearance at $30 and probably still have half a rack of those coats today.
Walmart is interesting in that regard. At one location, they mark clothing down to practically nothing - I’ve gotten packages of socks and underwear for $1, dress shirts and pants for $2, and even a pair of genuine leather dress shoes for $3 (originally $90, and the highest priced shoe at the store at the time). Meanwhile, another Walmart dumps their inventory into thrift stores long before prices are reduced to that point.

Also, at another Walmart, I noticed they carried a fair selection of Lee-branded clothing (another brand once dominate at Sears) but no US Polo Assn. So I assume Walmart is getting into name-brand fashion, but offerings will vary by store.
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Re: GAP and Walmart

Post by ClownLoach »

Brian Lutz wrote: September 6th, 2021, 4:59 pm
babs wrote: September 5th, 2021, 11:12 pm
Brian Lutz wrote: September 5th, 2021, 9:40 pm

Not necessarily. Costco is well known to source clothing from grey-market sources, and has been sued by product manufacturers for doing so in the past (notably by Omega Watches in 2010 in a lawsuit that was ultimately won by Costco.) It's also not unusual for said clothing to be factory seconds or overruns (the type of thing that might end up in factory outlet stores.) Here's an article about this:

https://www.mashed.com/165789/how-costc ... cted-item/

I know in the past I've bought Lucky Jeans from Costco, and it's not uncommon to see brands like Tommy Hilfiger or Polo show up on occasion as well.
These pants aren't gray market goods or overruns. Take a look at them next time you are at Costco. They're junk.
But the point is that it's very unlikely that Gap is deliberately selling their products in Costco stores.
I saw terrible quality GAP branded flannel shirts at Costco. The GAP tags are printed with the Costco SKU directly on them. So they're directly selling these to Costco, or they licensed their name to someone who knew they would go to Costco. Costco does sometimes have manufacturer overruns etc. but those have the regular manufacturer tag on them without a "COSTCO SKU 1234567" line on it.
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