6/15/2013
Retailers may highlight their omnichannel presence, social media popularity, and text messaging promotions, but ultimately merchandise drives back-to-school sales. And after a challenging spring, retailers are hoping their apparel, footwear, and accessories are exactly what children, teens, and their parents are looking for to lure them to their stores. “I think one of the most important characteristics about the apparel retailing market is just how fragmented it is,” says Ross’s Michael O’Sullivan. “There are many, many competitors. And as a result of that, we never take our customers for granted. They have plenty of choice about where they shop.”
The back-to-school industry is big business. Parents of K-12 students spent $688.62 each on their children’s school-related merchandise last year, according to the National Retail Federation. And they are expected to spend as much or even more this year. Clothing (60%) comprises most of their back-to-school expenses, according to Parenting magazine. And 6% of moms say their children contribute their own money to purchase back-to-school apparel.
Logos Are Out
A multitude of options during the back-to-school shopping season heightens the competitiveness of retailers. “The good news for us in turning this business around pretty quickly is that she’s not loyal,” says Wet Seal’s John Goodman. “I guess, the bad news is, she’s not loyal, so we really have to work hard every day to keep her coming back to our store, which is very important.”
“I think we all recognize the impact that social media is having in terms of the speed with which trends are being adopted, and how universally they are being adopted,” says PacSun’s Gary Schoenfeld. “The old days of the fashion-forward customer begins to wear it, and then months later it starts to trickle down to mainstream, and becomes meaningful six, nine, 12 months later, I mean, that whole time horizon has been tremendously compressed.” Both Abercrombie & Fitch and Aeropostale are scaling back on their logo-designed items in favor of more fashionable merchandise. Girls, in particular, are driven by trends, which currently include colored and printed pants. Boys are embracing more aggressive prints and patterns.
Aeropostale’s merchandise mix for the back-to-school season combines 40% to 50% of its core basics, such as T-shirts and denim, with fast-fashion trends. To capitalize on fast-fashion trends, Aeropostale is pursuing more “open-to-buy” deals that get product into stores in 21 to 120 days, say company executives. The teen retailer is also expanding its assortment by introducing Live Love Dream, a Lululemon-like collection of girl merchandise launching nationwide during the back-to-school season. Express retailers are also reintroducing casual loungewear, discontinued in 2005, during this back-to-school season.
Wet Seal believes an effective approach to attract teens and highlight its trendy apparel is to alter its layout to merchandising by trend and category instead of price or size. “So if leggings are really hot for us, as they are right now, we’re going to have leggings throughout the store, but also inside a whole leggings shop where it’s appropriate,” says Goodman. “We’ll also be going out and putting it in the windows as a key category for us.”
Denim drives teen retailer Buckle’s sales. Buckle shoppers spent an average of $96.15 per trip, with denim accounting for 45% of its sales. For back-to-school, Buckle is focusing on its two private-label denim lines, DayTrip and BKE, for girls, and its private-label offerings in men’s tops.
Guess is returning to its iconic denim designs with lower price points this fall after losing girl customers by chasing higher price points and fast-fashion trends. “We’re really looking at the destroyed look, which is doing well right now in the stores, and really more of your authentic heritage type of denim is the look that we’re going for back into fall,” says Guess’s Russell Bowers. “And we still feel good in the fall about coated denim this year as well.”
PacSun is aging up its merchandise mix to concentrate on the “much more fashion-savvy 17-to-24-year-old,” says Schoenfeld. As such, there’s less reliance on heritage and action sports brands and an increased focus on exclusive fashion collections, including Kylie and Kendall Kardashian’s line. Footwear brand Steve Madden is also aging up its merchandise by moving its Steve Madden shoes from Macy’s junior department to its older-skewing Impulse section. Since this transition, the brand has increased its sell-through and expanded both its doors and SKUs with Macy’s.
Retailers primarily roll out their back-to-school merchandise no earlier than July 4, but lately, retailers are extending the back end of the season. Children’s Place, for instance, will not replace its back-to-school merchandise with holiday offerings in mid-September as it did last year. “I think the hindsight from that was that [this early set of holiday merchandise] was too much of the floor set and too much of the floor space,” says Children’s Place’s Jane Elfers. “And what we really should have done is stayed in the back-to-school mode much longer into the month of September than we did.” As a result, Children’s Place will still include a few holiday items post-Labor Day, but back-to-school will continue to receive the majority of the floor placement and sales focus.
Children’s Place divides its back-to-school wares into several key classifications. “You have uniform, you have backpacks, you have graphic tees, and you have denim,” says Elfers. “And then in the Girls side, over the last year or so, jeggings have really come on as a competitor to denim, so you could really maybe add in a fourth classification.”
Bon-Ton, which oversees several Midwestern department stores, is reengineering its teen and tween departments by repositioning them on the selling floor. Now, they are adjacent to the rest of the ready-to-wear area, instead of on a different floor. “It was apparent that these floors were segregated from the rest of our apparel, and there were clothes in there that I think appeal to older than the juniors customer-the 20- or 30-something customer who thinks younger,” says Bon-Ton’s Brendan Hoffman. “Yet again, we weren’t making that shopping experience seamless for her because she would have to go to a different floor. And then when she walked in, we were basically advertising that this wasn’t a place for her to buy with the music we were choosing to play over the loudspeaker and some of the ways we were sorting it.”
Contacts and connections: Abercrombie & Fitch, Mike Jeffries, CEO, 6301 Fitch Path, New Albany, OH 43054; 614-283-6500; Abercrombie@abercrombie.com; www.abercrombie.com.
Aeropostale, Scott Birnbaum, SVP Marketing, 112 W. 34th St., 22nd Fl., New York, NY 10120; 646-264-6217; sbirnbaum@aeropostale.com; www.aerospostale.com.
Bon-Ton, Mary Kerr, 2801 East Market St., York, PA 17402; 717-751-3071; mkerr@bonton.com; www.bonton.com.
Brown Shoe Management, Will Smith, SVP Marketing, Famous Footwear, 8300 Maryland Ave., St. Louis, MO 63105; 314-854-4000; wsmith@brownshoe.com; www.brownshoe.com.
Buckle, Karen Rhoads, 2407 W. 24th St., Kearney, NE 68848; 308-236-8491; karen.rhoads@buckle.com; www.buckle.com.
Children’s Place, Jane Elfers, 915 Secaucus Rd., Secaucus, NJ 07094; 201-558-2400; jelfers@childrensplace.com; www.childrensplace.com.
Express, Amy Hughes, One Limited Pkwy., Columbus, OH 43230; 614-474-4325; ahughes@expressfashion.com; www.express.com.
The Gap, Olivia Doyle, 2 Folsom St., San Francisco, CA 94105; 650-952-4400; olivia_doyle@gap.com; www.gap.com.
Guess, Russell Bowers, 1444 S. Alameda St., Los Angeles, CA 90021; 213-765-3100; rbowers@guess.com; www.guessgroup.com.
Macy’s, Martine Reardon, EVP Sales, Marketing, 646-429-5200; martine.reardon@macys.com; www.macys.com.
National Retail Federation, Matthew Shay, President/CEO, 325 7th St., NW #1100, Washington, DC 20004; 202-783-7971; www.nrf.com.
PacSun, Gary Schoenfeld, CEO, 3450 E. Miraloma Ave., Anaheim, CA 92806; 714-414-4000; gschoenfeld@pacsun.com; www.pacsun.com.
The Parenting Group, Victoria Seremeta, Manager, Relations, 2 Park Ave., 10th Fl., New York, NY 10016; 212-779-5312; victoria.seremeta@bonniercorp.com; www.parenting.com.
Wet Seal, Yasmin El-Ezaby, 26972 Burbank, El Toro, CA 92610; 949-699-3900, x4154; yasmin.el-zaby@wetseal.com; www.wetseal.com.
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