Coming up short - men's shorts - Special Supplement: AM

Discount Store News, August 3, 1992 by Arnold J. Karr

Mass merchandisers are lowering their expectations but not their sales projections as they begin to plan their spring 1993 men's shorts purchasing.

Shorts have been such stellar performers in men's sportswear areas for the past few years, growing nearly 50 percent between 1989 and 1991, that they were budgeted for enormous increases this year. Led by denim in basic five-pocket models, they did deliver double-digit gains, a rarity in the hard-pressed men's sportswear business, but failed in most cases to sell at projected levels.

"Overall, short business has been only at plan this year," says Maxine Clark, executive vice president of Venture Stores, O'Fallon, Mo. "We believe it is a growing trend, but like any fashion issue, there are ups and downs."

Some blame overly optimistic projections for the pleasantly disappointing results, but there is near unanimity in and out of retailing that unreasonable spring weather hasn't helped matters.

"There were some retailers who planned 50 percent increases and were disappointed by 25 percent," says Angelo LaGrega, vice president of marketing for Wrangler in Greensboro, N.C. "Then again, they might have made it to 50 percent if the spring hadn't been so cold and damp."

Even with their slower than expected start, sales of men's shorts grew about 20 percent during the first five months of 1992, according to The NPD Group's consumer purchase panel of 16,000 U.S. households. This level is slightly lower than the 23.6 percent increase registered during 1991, when retail sales reached $1.36 billion, and about even with the 1990 growth rate. Discounters accounted for 27.7 percent of 1991 sales, as compared to 26.4 percent in 1989, and the three major chains 15.3 percent, against 18.9 percent two years earlier.

"We still haven't seen signs that the love affair with shorts is diminishing," says Mike Hand, vice president of apparel services for NPD. "They're continuing to experience greater and broader distribution."

But this year, at least, the excitement in shorts hasn't come as early or been as widespread as was at first anticipated. "We're running very substantial increases because we planned big increases, but sales aren't up to what we'd expected," says Meg Rist, national product development manager of men's wear for Sears, Chicago. "Next year, they'll remain strong, but we're planning for more modest increases--single- rather than double-digit."

She observes that Sears' sales trends with shorts fall strictly along geographic and climatic lines, with the warmest areas, such as the West Coast and the rest of the Sun Belt, having the largest increases, and the coolest areas, such as the Midwest, the smallest. In the Northeast, sales commenced in a sluggish fashion but picked up before Father's Day.

Rist includes Dockers, seersucker, young men's sheeting and longer length models among the stronger items in Sear's shorts assortment, but emphasizes that no single look or model even came close to denim in importance. The store's business in men's shorts by Levi Strauss & Co. has increased more than 100 percent, and private-label denims have also performed well.

"There really haven't been any losers in denim," she says. "Silver Tab shorts [from Levi's] are selling best right now, but we also did extremely well with white denim, which probably had the best checkout of the season on a stock-to-sale basis. Color is going to be important next spring, but we don't expect there'll be much volume beyond the washes, white and black."

Currently, the buying of shorts is split among the beachwear, young men's and men's pants buyers at Sears, but next year all varieties of shorts will be supervised by one buyer. Sears is also carrying shorts on a year-round basis in about 100 of its more southern stores and is doing a bit more with the classification for back-to-school. But Rist notes that the cooler weather this year in some locations demonstrated the risks of attempting to merchandise shorts earlier.

"If anything, we're getting more business on the back end--'buy now, wear now' shorts for northern stores in July and August," she adds.

Braintree, Mass.-based Bradlees is also basing its attempts to lengthen the shorts season on "the back end." "In the past, we'd always worked off existing stock," says Jon Devorkin, divisional merchandise manager of men's wear for the 127-unit discount chain. "This year, we're bringing in new goods--three different shorts in dark colors--for back-to-school for the first time to see if we can sell them."

Like Rist, he observes a strong correlation between weather and shorts sales this year. "When the weather was good, we did fine," he says. "When the temperatures didn't measure up to last year's, neither did sales of shorts. All in all, I think we would have equaled last year if thee wheather had been better."

But sales for 1992 appear unlikely to match those of 1991. "We're planning 1993 to fall somewhere between the high level of 1991 and the lower one of 1992," Devorkin notes.