The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
NEW YORK, United States — Gap Inc., which suffered a fire at its Northeastern distribution centre this week, is rerouting deliveries and boosting staff at its other facilities to cope with the fallout.
The company has not determined the cause of blaze, which did not harm any employees, according to a statement Thursday. The fire struck the smaller building on its campus in Fishkill, New York, on Monday, sparing the larger facility, Gap said. The bigger building is expected to be operational again soon.
"Gap Inc. has activated extensive contingency plans designed to help mitigate the overall impact to the business," the company said in the statement. "This includes leveraging the company's large North American network of distribution centres, as well as ship-from-store capabilities, to fulfil demand in the impacted Northeast region of the US."
The fire dealt a blow to a company struggling to pull out of a slump. The San Francisco-based chain said on Thursday that same-stores at its Gap locations declined 5 percent in August, worse than the 1.5 percent drop analysts had predicted.
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Gap should be able to weather the fire disruption, but it will put further pressure on results, said Poonam Goyal, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
“I definitely think it’s going to have impact on sales,” she said. “There’s definitely going to be some disruption.”
By Lindsey Rupp; editors: Nick Turner and John Lear.
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