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One trend American shoppers won't be seeing much of is the teenybopper pastel sweaters and T shirts that were once Esprit staples. Instead, the selection is more mature--khaki pants, jeans, striped shirts and white blouses. Although Esprit still sells basics, its designers add some clever flourishes to give the styles more panache. The company is positioning itself to sell clothing at prices 10% to 15% lower than Banana Republic's. Krogner calls Esprit clothing "for good girls. Not the one with a ring in her nose or showing her belly."
A U.S. turnaround could go a long way toward helping Esprit maintain its frenetic pace. "Because growth rates have started to slow down, they need to get into bigger markets where their penetration is low," says Macquarie retail analyst Ramiz Chelat in Hong Kong. Hello, U.S.A. By 2002, sales had fallen to $150 million, from $700 million in 1987, according to Macquarie. Krogner got control of Esprit's American business when Ying bought the U.S. trademark in 2002. (The company is now publicly traded; Ying owned 15.8% as of the end of 2005.) As part of the acquisition, Krogner forced a shutdown of Esprit's existing American operations to afford a fresh start.
That time Krogner stumbled initially. He tried selling through department stores like Macy's and Dillard's--a strategy that had been successful in Europe--but unhappy with the placement given his product, he pulled the brand out. (Esprit is still carried by Nordstrom.) Then in late 2004, he reintroduced Esprit retail stores and now has 15 stores and outlets, most of them in the New York City area, including a flagship in hip SoHo. Again, some of those locations flopped, so Krogner dispatched COO Jerome Griffith to oversee the U.S. operation. Krogner also plans to open five more stores this fiscal year in ultra-prime locations and intends to focus on the region from Boston to Washington.
Esprit intends to invest $20 million a year in the U.S. business, but some retail-industry watchers say it may need to get more aggressive. To win customers in the U.S., Esprit has to spend more on splashy marketing to create new buzz around the brand, they say. "Word of mouth takes a long time to spread," says Marshal Cohen, a retail analyst at market-research firm NPD Group. "They've got to do more than open doors. This isn't the Field of Dreams." Meanwhile, analysts complain, the brand still fails to resonate, especially with younger consumers who don't remember Esprit. Says retail analyst Emanuel Weintraub: "For young people, Esprit might as well be their father's Oldsmobile." Good girls may shop Esprit, but bad girls shop everywhere.
Krogner says his conservative approach is the best way to preserve Esprit's strong profits while his management team figures out the U.S. retail scene. "People have lost their pants" in the U.S., he says. "You don't do a marathon if you have the flu."
It could take five years, Krogner says, for Esprit to gain traction in the U.S. market. But he's starting to see some positive results. U.S. sales surged 83% in the first half of the 2005-06 fiscal year. "Why shouldn't we make it in America?" he asks. "It's our home." Or at least it was.