American Eagle Outfitters closes Tmall store

By

Jennifer Braun

Published
Jun 24, 2022

American Eagle Outfitters has officially closed its Tmall store, the marketplace owned by retail giant Alibaba.

The company opened its Tmall flagship store with an American Eagle and Aerie brand offering, in 2014, and slowly started to cut its retail footprint. Come June 2019, it closed all brick-and-mortar stores in mainland China. 

Still, just last year Andrew McLean, chief commercial officer at American Eagle, told the South China Morning Post that it was still hopeful in pursuing growth in the country. 

“For now, we’re focusing online in China but my hope is that within the next two to three years we will open bricks-and-mortar stores,” said McLean. “I don’t want to get it wrong and China is only going to get stronger. ‘Measure twice, cut once’ is how we’re approaching China.”

The U.S. is AEO’s main market but the company has a global network spanning South America, the Middle East and Asia, where it has physical stores in Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines and India. 

In particular, Hong Kong continues to be an important demographic, where it operates more than 10 brick-and-mortar American Eagle and Aerie brand stores.  

AEO, which operates American Eagle, Aerie, Offline by Aerie, Unsubscribed, AE77 and Todd Snyder, first entered the Asian market with an American Eagle store opening in Hong Kong, in 2011. Soon after, the brand opened an Asian flagship store in Shanghai and in Beijing.