Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) is known for pricey merchandise, snooty salespeople, a brand ripe for satire, and occasional bouts of alleged malicious behavior. So it feels like poetic justice that these "beautiful people" have been grappling with an ugly infestation of bedbugs. Two of the company's stores in New York City -- first a Hollister, then one of the company's namesake outlets -- reportedly harbored the unpleasant parasites last week.
Interestingly, jetsetter/CEO Mike Jeffries might have had a hard time figuring out what to do; according to The Wall Street Journal, he sent a letter to New York mayor Michael Bloomberg asking for "leadership and guidance" on the matter. Jeffries is known for making megabucks, and shareholders assumed they were receiving leadership and guidance from him. Ironically, bedbugs are jet-setters, too -- but they prefer hitchhiking when they travel. Watch your shopping bags closely!
Abercrombie's bedbug fiasco only affects those two unfortunate locations, and the company seems to be performing the necessary treatments to quickly return to business as usual. The first store affected was set to reopen on Saturday. Many shoppers, particularly teens, have short attention spans, so I doubt this will leave a lasting impression. And granted, this sort of problem could have happened to any old retailer. Shareholders may be grossed out, but they have bigger problems to fret about, like Abercrombie's overpaid CEO, and the company's struggles to lure teen customers back from rivals like Aeropostale (NYSE: ARO).
Over the years, plenty of consumer-facing companies have dealt with highly publicized weirdness in their stores, and come out just fine in the end. Yum! Brands' (NYSE: YUM) Taco Bell survived a rat attack, and Wendy's/Arby's (NYSE: WEN) got past the finger incident (which turned out to be a scam). As icky as those incidents were at the time, powerful competitors like McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) still pose a far greater challenge to both restaurants over the long haul.
Still, the bedbug incident couldn't have happened to a nicer store. For a retailer that's been accused of everything from racial discrimination to rating employees on their faces and banishing "zeroes" to the back ... well, karma sure bites, doesn't it?
