Comments on: Hollister VS Abercrombie Branding and User Experience.

By: Johnny

Johnny — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:23:05 +0000

There’s still something about both brands that captivates people.

I was curious about the difference between the 2. By definition, Hollister is aiming for a slightly younger crowd than A&F with a slightly lower price entry point and a decidedly more ‘beachy’ brand than the homely A&F style, yet the clothes they offer are almost identical…plaid shirts with arms too long so you have to roll up the sleeves and chests too tight so you have to get a large size just to fit into them…and then have even longer sleeves…this is common to both stores…

The user experience of purchasing said shirts is a total nightmare – in both shops – as pointed out here and yet…unlike any clothes store i’ve ever been to…people queue up outside the shops to wait to get in. In Westfield, just before Christmas, I had the humiliation of standing with my wife outside the Holister shop with my wife praying nobody I knew saw me with my baseball hat pulled way down over my face. Why was there a queue? Nothing to do with overcrowding. In fact, inside, the shop was actually reasonably mob free unlike the rest of the shops that day. It’s all about creating the exclusive feeling of going into that dark & scented environment to part with far too much cash for seriously overvalued clothes that make you advertise the brand every time you wear them.

And yet…as Sarah has really well documented…I’ve got clothes from both A&F and Hollister now – and not just from the sale section hidden down the back. But I’ve spent time digging out the right sizes from the heaps of clothes left lying on top of each other. I’ve begged an assistant to open a changing room for me if they could spare a moment from modeling the wares for a while. I’ve held back on the urge to reply to the ‘Hey What’s Up?’ welcome with any form of contempt at american greetings being forced upon the unfortunate folk of east london.

Why…I’m a sucker for any experience that is in anyway different to the standard high street shopping monotomy…even if it’s infuriating & intoxicating at the same time.

Ingenious for 1 firm to create 2 (and a half…don’t forget the kids section Abercrombie) brands that have become so popular so quickly and yet are almost indistinguishable to the casual observer

By: Paige

Paige — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 23:12:07 +0000

I LOVE Hollister….Maybe i’s an American thing, but I practically live there and I plan to work there someday:)
Btw, does anybody know what the actual Hollister font is? It look like MS Gothic, but with slight differences on the I and L….thanks:)

By: Alison

Alison — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:02:50 +0000

My daughter purchased a jacket from Hollister in Belfast on Saturday. Her debit card didn’t work according to the sales assistant so she paid in cash. Guess what checked with the bank and Hollister charged her card as well. I phoned the Manager but they cannot give us the money back. I have been told I have to phone California to get them to send me the refund as they do not have a Head Office in the UK! WHAT ABOUT THAT FOR CUSTOMER CARE!!!

By: Emma

Emma — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 18:28:35 +0000

I am 15 and i absolutely love the whole abercrombie experience! the clothes are beautiful and the shops are amazing! you go and and feel like you are on a different planet! i suppose they want to be different to all the other shops and they do this well. when i go on holiday from scotland to america i make sure i can get myself to an abercrombie shop because its all so exciting. i think the products are over priced but hey ho, mums paying:)

By: PeyoNYC

PeyoNYC — Sat, 08 May 2010 15:02:01 +0000

IKEA would be a somehow similar example maybe? Offline shopping experience is awkward: you have to walk through the entire shop, whatever you want to buy. It is relatively well structured, but you have absolutely no control over your shopping experience. The online shopping experience by contrast is simple and neat.

@Dan — this is not a I’m a Mac/I’m a PC forum but my piece of advice would be: instead of trying to explain people why they shouldn’t buy Macs, why don’t you try to understand why they do buy them?

By: Jake

Jake — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 22:11:05 +0000

One of the most disturbing things that I have found with both the Hollister stores in my local mall (Ann Arbor, MI) is that they do not hold items under a circumstance. I’m sure there is probably a reason to this, but to me it is not apparent. But the overall lack of service in both of these stores is ridiculous and reflects a very scary future of retail where customers like to be abused by the retailer (Apple?).

By: Mandeex3

Mandeex3 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:53:53 +0000

Is Hollister really that bad? Gosh… I never knew it was that terrible. I’ve never been to the store. I just shop form them online! They send me pretty good stuff.

By: Phil Norton

Phil Norton — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:43:59 +0000

A few weeks ago I spent a frustrating 45 minutes in the Hollister store in Belfast, and came out if it and started ranting to my wife (who’d been spared the experience) about the poor “user experience”. Now, it turns out that there was a sale on that day (you’d never have known: not only is is impossible to detect what the shop sells from the outside, but there was nothing to suggest that a sale was taking place), but still, here’s what I found…

* Dark. So very, very dark inside. And with an overpowering smell of “So Cal”, the fragrance each of the identikit sales assistants tries to sell to you.

* All of the staff were from Belfast, but without fail, each of them greeted me with “Hey, what’s up?”. I mean, seriously! I know it’s an American brand, but this was in the middle of Belfast, where we greet eachother with a Jim McDonald-style “’bout ye”!!

* There were 8 fitting rooms in the store. 5 of them were closed. For no reason. Leading to huge waits to try on the clothes.

* On top of that, there was then another 25 minute wait to actually purchase anything. And, despite the huge queues, each of the sales assistants STILL tried to sell you the bloody fragrances!! Seriously? I’ve just spent the last 45 minutes waiting to GIVE YOU MY MONEY, so the very least you could do is to make the actual purchasing bit as quick as possible.

I swore that I would never again darken Hollister’s doors, to be put through such a horrific shopping experience. And, of course, the irony is that, as an American brand, I was expecting the shopping experience to be second to none. But it was actually more painful that a visit to Primark with the missus (which, it has to be said, makes me want to cry every single time!!).

By: Jon Moss

Jon Moss — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:55:27 +0000

Great comparison of these two very modern brands. I must admit, I had not heard of Hollister.

I’ve been chuckling away at my desk about the instore A&F experiences – spot on and very funny. I’ve been to the 5th Avenue and the Savile Row store. Three big impressions for me, sorry, make that 4:

- could not see anything (I wear glasses, but they are the correct prescription)
- could not hear anything (music was good but deafening)
- I felt old, very od
- I felt distinctly out of shape (have you seen those chaps on the front door?)

Not the best shopping experience for a very traditional 38 year old

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:59:50 +0000

By reliability I take it you mean in terms of the OS, seeing as the hardware is the same these days. I suppose OSX, being UNIX based does have some reliability and security benefits. I’ll give you that.

However with the RAM I did look into the free slots slots thing and yes, for the upgrade, Apple use a single 4GB stick which means the upgrade price would not only cover the additional stick but the replacement of the existing 2 X 2GB sticks as well. I factored this in and this still came out at Apple – £800 and Crucial approx. £60 Crazy Talk!!