Universal Appeal

Gap acquired Athleta, a womens sport and active apparel brand last fall. While I have been working out a lot more lately, this new line extension probably wouldn't have caught my attention, save for the fact that last week Athleta became the fifth tab in Gaps "universality" website function. If you go to any of the company's websites, Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime and now Athleta, you are brought to their universal site which enables you to shop from any of the stores using one shopping cart and are charged one flat shipping fee.

While Amazon has been integrating sales from multiple sources for some time, it is really more of a go-between for individuals and other ecommerce stores. Gap has done something a little different with its brands, creating a portal that hopefully engages consumers and incentivizes them to shop multiple stores at once to their benefit. Of course it helps that there is audience overlap for these brands, though their styles and price points may differ somewhat. I wonder if the same concept could be applied to the Urban Outfitters brands, Urban, Free People and Anthropologie - my guess is no. Those brands are more life stage-targeted, though some of their items have a similar aesthetic so there would be some customers who shop at more than one of these stores.

Though I recently swore off online shopping in favor of going to the store, I know I can be easily swayed, so a one-stop shop is certainly pretty enticing.