We shopped at Forever 21 the day after the fast-fashion retailer filed for bankruptcy and saw firsthand why it's in hot water
First, we visited the Forever 21 store located inside of New York City's Oculus, a major shopping and transportation hub in the Financial District.
The first thing we noticed were bright yellow signs announcing a sale for up to 90% off and select items for $1 and $5.
We arrived shortly after the store opened at 9 a.m., and there were very few shoppers in sight.
Once inside, we immediately spotted messy, disorganized racks brimming with discount items.
There were also boxes of product and racks of hangers scattered around the store.
Then we made our way to the sale section, which was promoting $5 racks of clothing.
As we got closer, we saw the area was a complete mess. In addition to bare racks, nothing was in any distinguishable order.
Throughout the store, piles of products were strewn about everywhere.
Many of the displays were in disarray, with unfolded clothing. Here, we saw an unmanned ladder.
There seemed to be no semblance of organization. This area included men's and women's T-shirts, plaid skirts, sports bras, and other various accessories with no through line.
Near the register, we spotted this "price menu" that included extremely cheap items like home goods for $1 and outerwear for $9.
The register was filled with more super cheap, disorganized products, but no shoppers.
Concurrently, we visited Forever 21's only London store in the city's busy shopping area, Oxford Street.
While Forever 21 has said it will be closing most of its European and Asian stores, it's not clear yet whether this store will be impacted.
In its heyday, Forever 21 was known for its cheap, trendy clothing. Today, the collection seemed somewhat uninspiring.
Our impressions of the store layout were good, despite this being a criticism of analysts. It wasn't rammed full of inventory and the apparel was neatly laid out.
But it was impossible to distinguish one section from another. The three floors of women's clothing seemed to merge into one another.
In its bankruptcy filing, Forever 21 highlighted "duplicative" inventory as being one of its key challenges. The design team, it said, was traditionally structured around creating products for each style (work, weekend, and night, for example) rather than by category (like tops or bottoms). This meant that they often ended up creating very similar products for different sections.
The company said in the filing that its design teams will be centered around categories to combat this.
"This will reduce duplicative design and help produce the trendy fashion upon which its brand was built," it said.
The clothing was certainly cheap. But, online players such as Fashion Nova, Missguided, and Boohoo are selling clothing at a similar price point while rolling out thousands of new items each day.
Upstairs, it was sales mania.
The racks were immaculately organized, but it was concerning to see so much stock on sale. Many of the items seemed to be seasonless basics.
As we headed toward the exit, we saw signs urging customers to connect with the brand online. A quick glimpse on Instagram revealed that Forever 21 has exactly the same amount of followers as Fashion Nova and more than double that of Boohoo. Considering its massive following, and that it is soon to be free of some expensive real estate, it's possible that the company has the chance to turn the business around and keep up with its online rivals.
That's certainly its plan.
"Filing for bankruptcy protection is a deliberate and decisive step to put us on a successful track for the future," the company wrote in a statement on Sunday.
"This was an important and necessary step to secure the future of our company, which will enable us to reorganize our business and reposition Forever 21," Linda Chang, the company's executive vice president, said in the statement.
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