Gap Inc - Background

Gap Inc. began its journey 1969 as a small retail store in San Francisco, California where it concentrated its sales on Levi's jeans. In its early stages as a small retail business it was known as The Gap. By the end of the 1970's, Donald and Doris Fisher, owners of The Gap, had expanded The Gap to six stores. The company went public in 1976. By the early 1980's, The Gap had over five hundred stores; largely targeting a teenage customer base. In 1983 the Fishers hired Mickey Drexler as Gap Inc. new president. Shortly there after, Gap Inc. purchased Banana Republic. This purchase rescued the struggling company from financial distress with Drexler revamping its clothing line and turning Banana Republic profitable once again. Throughout the late eighties and early nineties Gap Inc. expanded to form Gap Kids (1985), Baby Gap (1990), Old Navy (1984), and Gap Body (1998). Gap Inc. also became a world wide retailer by opening stores in London, England and Vancouver, British Columbia in the 1980's. Gap Inc. became an online retailer in 1997 by forming Gap.com and offering its products to consumers worldwide.

Gap Inc. currently employs over one hundred and sixty thousand employees and has two thousand nine hundred seventy-nine stores world wide, including Canada, United Kingdom, France, Japan, Germany, and of course the United States. Gap Inc.'s customer base includes men and women of all ages. It offers clothing in a variety of styles and sizes, accessories, and personal care products.

Gap Inc. established itself as only a designer and marketer; all of its goods are manufactured by others. Gap Inc.'s main headquarters are located in the San Francisco Bay area; while its product development offices are located in New York City, New York. It has distribution centers located throughout the world. Gap Inc.'s global distribution centers' operations are overseen by the Global Compliance Department.

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