Dive Brief:

• Abercrombie & Fitch Thursday said that sales in its first quarter fell for the thirteenth quarter in a row but that its losses were mitigated by the ability to avoid discounting. Net sales of $685.5 million were down 3% compared to last year, with first quarter same-store sales down 4% company-wide, below analysts' expectations for a 1.5% rise, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

• Same-store sales at U.S. Abercrombie & Fitch stores fell 8% while Hollister same-store sales were flat and international sales fell 7%. 

• The company also announced that Stacia Andersen, a long-time Target vet, will head the Abercrombie & Fitch brand, joining the company next month and succeeding Christos Angelides who abruptly left last year after a little more than a year at the job. Former Victoria’s Secret general merchandise manager Kristin Scott will head up the Hollister brand beginning in August. On a conference call with analysts, executives also said they’re still in no hurry to find a CEO.

Dive Insight:

Abercrombie executives Thursday acknowledged that the sales numbers for the quarter weren’t ideal, but took pains to say that improvements to the retailer’s merchandise are paying off, both in appeal to customers and in fetching higher prices. The retailer has been in the middle of a turnaround which has seen it shift from highly-sexual marketing to more toned-down images and stores. Abercrombie has also adapted its merchandising strategy to rely less on the logo-centric apparel that was popular in the past. 

The trouble, especially in Europe, is that traffic to stores is light, for a variety of reasons: the strong dollar, terrorism fears, even the so-called “Brexit” vote, which could see the U.K. leave the European Union. But even in the States retailers have seen minimized traffic to their stores, evident in the many disappointing earnings announced this week and last. 

“There is really no way for us to know when the traffic headwinds will cease or moderate or turn in the other direction,” said executive chairman Arthur Martinez on a conference call with analysts. “But what's important is what we're focused on, which is conversion of the traffic we do get into our stores.”

Martinez also told CNBC Thursday that the company is improving its merchandise quality because there’s evidence that consumers are tiring of “disposable fashion” and are beginning to pay more for longer-lasting apparel.

Betty Chen, managing director of Mizuho Securities, also told CNBC that while she agrees that there are signs that consumers will pay more for better clothing, she’s not sure that Abercrombie is up to the shift. "It's going to be a very long road given the historical brand context for Abercrombie & Fitch," she said.

Columbia University business school retail studies professor Mark Cohen agrees with the idea and said that it’s unclear what that shift will really entail, considering, he says, that Abercrombie and its Hollister brand are still trying to figure out who they after the exit of CEO Mike Jeffries nearly two years ago. 

“There’s a massive effort going on to figure out how to position Hollister and Abercrombie, but whether it can be done remains to be seen,” Cohen told Retail Dive. “Abercrombie is a complicated brand, which has different equity in Europe and Asia than here.”

Now, even that brand equity abroad may be waning.