VF Jeanswear

Today we visited the VF Jeanswear company. Prior to the visit I had never heard of the company, I had always assumed that brands such as Wrangler, Lee and Riders were completely independent companies. From the moment we walked in it was a highly educational experience. Because the facility wasn’t a factory we did not have a tour this led for plenty of time (and overtime) to be informed on multiple departments of work that they did there. The place we visited was the VF Jeanswear cooperate headquarters, this was where they did all the management for the entirety of North and South America. This facility managed only a handful of companies that VF owns, specifically the jean wear. However, VF owns over twenty five companies on a worldwide scale. Their companies include impressive brands such as; The North Face, Timberland, Vans, Nautica, Eastpack, Reef and much more. VF is a very large company and operates on a worldwide scale, they have over 57,000 employees in over sixty countries.

The mission of VF Jeanswear was given to us in one of the slides presented to us today. The mission stated; “we will create the leading jeans and lifestyle apparel company in North and South America by offering our consumers branded product solutions at compelling value.” The jeans that they manage are focused around the working class individual so their product must be durable and affordable. They hope to distribute numerous styles for a diverse customer base.

The VF Jeanswear company does not have a specific customer, they are a management company. They distribute their jeans to large companies such as Walmart, Kmart, Kohls, Sears and Tractor supply. Because they are not dealing with customers directly they must do a ton of research on fashion trends and economic activity. They must prepare months in advance what product and how much to sell to these companies. They also face competition when providing their jeans to large stores. One of the speakers today talked about “swim lanes” this is when a company like Kohls will refuse to buy Wangler jeans if Walmart has them because they do not want to compete with Walmart. Large companies want to stay in their lanes and profit on a variety of products that companies like Walmart cannot provide.

The average customer that they market to as discussed today is a man that is around 43 years old, 50% percent of the time not a highschool grad, and is of the working class. These customers value the durability and comfort of the jeans that VF distributes. They also are able to offer this high quality jean at a low price so they can sell at Walmart and Kohls, allowing their target customer to be able to afford them.

As a result of this VF Jeanswear has become the number one jean distributer in the world. They have numerous factories and distributors around the world and look to expand and remain on top.

VF has many plans for the future that we heard today. Their main goal is to penetrate the department store market. As of now they have very few department store distributers and if they can acquire some they will increase profits significantly. Much like most companies VF wants to increase revenue and expand production. They hope to establish source in Africa and Europe and expand even more.

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