Case Study: American Eagle Outfitters achieves 70% lower research costs and triples in‑house research with Qualtrics

American Eagle Outfitters - Customer Case Study

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) is a leading global specialty retailer with more than 1,000 stores and e‑commerce shipping to 81 countries, operating the American Eagle Outfitters® and Aerie® brands. Faced with too much time spent on data collection, limited reporting capabilities, and a need for real‑time insights to support rapid merchandising and product decisions, AEO needed a faster, scalable way to get reliable customer feedback.

AEO implemented Qualtrics Research Suite and Qualtrics Panels to run seasonal product and wear testing (covering ~80% of products), build a large targeted consumer panel, and deliver real‑time reporting across the organization. The program cut research costs by 70%, halved the research workload, tripled in‑house research volume, grew the consumer panel by 400%, and enabled faster, data‑driven product and marketing decisions.

American Eagle Outfitters

Paul Elliott

Senior Director of Marketing Strategies, Research and Testing