Apparel gearing up for multicultural offerings

DSN Retailing Today, July 5, 2004 by Mike Troy

ORLANDO -- Sears' pursuit of the multicultural market will be elevated to a new level this fall when the retailer launches an apparel-focused initiative at 97 stores nationwide.

Sandra Diaz, Sears director of multicultural marketing, contends the retailer has a big opportunity to completely distort the apparel assortment in select stores to call attention to the breadth of new and existing brands that appeal to multicultural consumers.

"It's not that we've never sold multicultural brands in our stores, we've just never had a concentrated effort to unify the presentation," Diaz told DSN Retailing Today last month at the University of Florida's annual Retailing Smarter conference.

Among the brands to be included in the program are multicultural versions of Sears own brands such as Apostrophe, Laura Scott and First Issue by Liz Claiborne. A new brand called Azucar Bella from Chula will also be introduced.

"We really want to bring into these stores a sizeable assortment of brands that cater to the multicultural market," Diaz said.

The program is the latest effort from a retailer that has earned a reputation as an industry leader for developing innovative products and programs to reach Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians. Perhaps the best example is the creation of a publication called Nuestra Gente. In the early 1990's when Sears wanted to reach Hispanic consumers, it couldn't find any suitable magazines, so the company created its own. Since its launch in 1993, circulation has grown to 865,000 and today has the largest audited circulation of any Spanish-language magazine and is supported by ad sales to other companies.

Such efforts position Sears to capitalize on the projected growth in spending by ethnic consumers. Figures presented by Diaz indicate the spending power of the multicultural market will grow to $2.3 trillion dollars in 2010 from $636 billion in 1990.