American Eagle Outfitters

In this blog I will talk about another one of my favourite name brands.
American Eagle was began in 1997, but it was part of another large company called Silvermen's Menswear who sold young men's apparel and was situated in Pennsylvania. The company started out by selling clothing for both men and women but focused mainly on outdoor sports apparel. I find it extremely fascinating that nearly every name brand that I have written a blog about started out by some sort of sports apparel. In 1980, the owners of this company had some financial problems and therefore had to change the name of the company and give half their sales to another company, The Schottensteins. This is when American Eagle Outfitters really became to expand. In 1992, the company hired a new COO, Sam Forman and with this new management, American Eagle changed their business and focused mainly on their outdoor look. The stores went public in 1994 and in 1997 "sales increased by 24.3% to set a record high of $405.7 million." 
The company was sued 4 times by Abercrombie and Fitch for "copying" their product but fortunately won all cases. 

In 2006, American Eagle launched a company within the company called Aerie that carries a variety of lingerie, targeted for girls between the ages of 15-21. They had also launched a company for men and women between the ages of 28 - 40 but the company was not successful and they were forced to close all stores in 2010. Aerie however was very successful and they have many stores. In 2007, American Eagle expanded to New York and in 2010 opened stores in Dubai, Kuwait, Hong Kong, Russia, and Shanghai.

Since 1977, the company has had its ups and downs but has been very successful and now has more than 1000 stores in the U.S and Canada. I personally love this brand, it is in fact my favorite at the moment. There are very few things in that store that I would not wear and everything is very good quality. I am not surprised that the company started out being privately owned by another company because any brands that I've done research on so far all started out small and became big with the help of a larger company. I am very glad that they were able to work through all their obstacles and be as successful as they have been. Not only is the product great but the staff is always extremely friendly in any location that I've been too. Their product is not unreasonably priced therefore it doesn't break mine or my mom's bank to go shopping there. I hope this blog is as interesting to everyone else as it was for me! 

http://digbycapstone.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/aeo1.pdf
http://www.dividendchannel.com/symbol/aeo/