Today our class visited the VF Corporation in Greensboro, North Carolina. The VF Corporation is also known as the Jeanswear Coalition of VF, the company consists of many popular brands such as: North Face, Wrangler, Lee, Timberland, Vans, and etc. It was very interesting to learn that all these extremely popular clothing brands were all essentially apart of the same organization. Overall the company contains over 30 different clothing and footwear brands. The company employs around 57,000 employees and is expanding worldwide. The VF corporation has been around for about 115 years, which is very impressive and shows this company has a commitment to sustainability.
The VF corporation’s mission includes “to grow lifestyle brands that excite customers and the world”. The VF corporation has made a commitment to the VF people who are the source of their success. Whatever the people want VF is committed to find this and try and create a product through their popular brands that is exceptional quality at a reasonable price. The VF Corporation’s apparel mostly focuses on outside wear and action sports attire. Also VF is dedicated to continue grow and expand into clothing markets all over the world.
VF’s customers are so many different individuals worldwide. However, they sell to the big three marketing units (which are their most important). The big three include large superstores, department stores, and speciality stores. For example large superstores would include places like Walmart, Target, and K-mart. Department stores like Sears, Kohls, Macys, and JC Pennys. Other speciality stores include places like Tractor Supply or Boot Barn. Anywhere any of the VF brands are being sold that store has purchased that clothing through the VF Corporation.
Obviously the customers of VF expect one very important thing and that is the quality of their clothing. The only way to keep customers in the clothing business is to have exceptional quality clothing and the VF Corporation strives to make sure all of their brands have exceptionally good quality. Also their customers need good quality at a reasonable price so VF needs to make sure their clothing is sold at cheap prices.
The VF Corporation’s results are extremely high, they brought in just under 11 billion dollars last year in revenue. One of their goals in 2017 is to bring in 17 billion dollars. The VF Corporation in Greensboro, that we visited, brings in around 2.2 billion dollars in revenue.They move 175 million units a year, precisely 15 units a second. VF’s plan for the future is to too continue to expand and is to continue making the same great quality product at a lower cost. They want to find other countries to manufacture their products for less to make more profit. Also one of their other goals is to develop their e-commerce sales and try to eventually sell directly to their customers. Maybe even try and open up retail stores. Overall I thought this visit was extremely interesting and I was very impressed how VF has really taken the top spot of the jeans and other apparel market spot and has plans to improve their sales.
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