A store found amongst many malls is seeing its last days soon. Forever 21 has announced the closure of all 350 United States stores. This is followed by their second bankruptcy filing in six years.
Forever 21 was founded in 1984 by Do Won Chang and Jin Sook Chang. The store quickly rose to popularity as it contained trendy and affordable clothes. The brand’s main target audience was young people looking for the newest fashion trends at an accessible price. At the stores peak, Forever 21 had the most stores globally, reaching a peak of over 800 locations, by 2015, with 480 stores in the US and $4.4 billion in global sales.
What’s the reasoning behind the stores closing? Well, many factors contributed to the loss of this nationwide store. Such as online fast-fashion, overexpansion, economic troubles, etc… An example of the online fast-fashion competitors are Shein and Temu. These online stores are able to quickly change the clothing trends on their website, and the pricing on these items online are extremely low. Forever 21 made more and more stores across the nation and was hard to maintain considering the price of these store leases. Along with Covid-19 closing the majority of in-person stores for around a year, the company struggled with making profit because of how much they relied on shopping malls.
The closing of these stores is going to result in thousands of employees getting laid off. This may be the end of Forever 21’s in-person, but luckily they are continuing on with their online presence.
