Exterior of Old Navy store

SAN FRANCISCO—Gap Inc., which recently posted its third consecutive quarter of positive same-store sales results, unveiled a strategy for “balanced growth” Wednesday. The apparel retailer, which presented Wednesday at Goldman Sachs' 24th Annual Global Retailing Conference, plans to expand its brick-and-mortar footprint in its most profitable brands, close underperforming stores and grow its online and mobile channels.

“Over the past two years, we've made significant progress evolving how we operate, starting with getting great product into the hands of our customers, more consistently and faster than ever before,” says president and CEO Art Peck. “With much of this foundation in place, we're now shifting our focus to growth. We will leverage our iconic brands and significant scale to deliver growth by shifting to where our customers are shopping: online, value and active.”

Across all channels, Gap sees its Old Navy and Athleta flags as its growth brands, with projected net sales of $10 billion and $1 billion, respectively, within the next few years. With that in mind, over the next three years the company expects to add about 270 Old Navy, Athleta and value-priced stores and close 200 underperforming Gap and Banana Republic locations.

The company plans to invest significantly in its online and mobile channels, focusing on areas such as direct fulfillment capacity, loyalty, personalization, omnichannel services, artificial intelligence and other data-driven customer experiences. While expecting same-store sales to range from flat to up slightly for fiscal 2017, Gap anticipates double-digit increases in its online business.

“We were early movers in the digital space, launching e-commerce more than two decades ago,” Peck said last month on Gap's second-quarter earnings call. “More than a decade ago, we saw the power of our brands together and quickly migrated to one platform where our customers could cross shop all of our brands with one easy checkout. This scaled platform allows us to add innovation easily and also brands as we did with Athleta, as we continue to grow the company.”

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Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny is managing editor of Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. He has been reporting on business since 1988 and on commercial real estate since 2007. He is based at ALM Real Estate Media Group's offices in New York City.

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