Mass market metamorphosis - Discount Store News Special Supplement: AM Apparel Merchandising - Editorial

Discount Store News, June 21, 1993 by Jeffrey Arlen

This is a true story. A woman walks into a large Westchester, N.Y store for the first time. She's impressed by the broad assortment of women's apparel, accessories and jewelry that occupies the entire main floor.

After some time browsing, she buys a bathing suit, some shorts, a bra, two dresses and shoes.

Later, when she is visiting with her sister-in-law and her brand new 10-day old nephew, little Johnny, at their Scarsdale, N.Y home, she breaks open her packages, displaying their contents. She goes through her purchases, item-by-item, proudly showing off the bargains she picked up on her shopping excursion.

She bought them at Bradlees? new three-level 207,000-sq.-ft. Yonkers store. As I said before, this scenario - a classic retailing dream sequence-actually occured.

One other thing, this woman, a thirty-something actress, is usually a department store customer. In fact, when she walked into Bradlees-the chain opened Yonkers, its first unit in the New York metropolitan area, at the end of April - she thought she had entered some kind of new moderate department store. She didn't know that Bradlees is classified as a discount store. She just knew that the place had a lot of attractive styles at prices that fell well within the range of her pocketbook.

The Yonkers Bradlees, with its 144,000-sq. -ft. selling space, doesn't look like a typical discount store, not even one of those attractive remodels that many chains have added to their retailing repertoire.

A major reason is its size; apparel alone claims 73,000 sq. ft. Individual clothing categories are afforded far more space, and grander displays, than are typical of Bradlees or other discount operations.

"In this store, we have the luxury of setting up individual businesses," said Bradlees' senior vp of soft fines Cecilia Swartz, during a pre-opening tour. Not only does the store sport an extended 16,000-sq.-ft. misses department, it contains more than 3,200 sq. ft. of juniors space, 4,200 sq. ft. of special sizes and a 2,400 sq. ft. of women's swimwear. Selling spaces are not the only things that are extended at Bradleed Yonkers store. Price points have also been stretched.

Bathing suits reach the $39.99 level. Bath robes go as high as $34.99, compared to topping out at $29.99 throughout the rest of the chain, and dresses with tickets as high as $99 are on the floor. In general, the merchandise mix represents Bradlees? cutting edge.

"We're going to have to learn who our customer is going to be, and that will emerge quickly. Right now we are merchandising with our strengths," Swartz says.

Bradleed entry into the New York market has given the Braintree, Mass. chain a chance to strut its merchandising muscle. It also gives the store a chance to recreate itself in a brand new market.