Juniors comes of age - women's apparel, marketing efforts at mass merchants - Apparel Merchandising

Discount Store News, Oct 21, 1996 by James Mammarella

Mass merchants are studying an old subject with fresh eyes. "We're going to school," says Larry Angst, vice president for women's fashion at Hills Stores.

The major: juniors.

For the first time, Hills has carved out a space on the selling floor for juniors. The chain is showing the category's fashions in a minidepartment adjacent to misses on the front aisle of the store.

Hills is not alone among mass merchants in taking this course. Regional chains such as Bradlees and Pamida already have a track record; Pamida broke out a juniors departments one year ago, and Bradlees made a similar move for the current season.

Bradlees had experimented with juniors departments previously, but went back to the traditional discount mode--incorporating juniors looks into the misses assortment--in recent years. "Our fashion-forward goods have been mixed in with, or directly adjacent to, the misses goods," says Celia Clancy, senior vice president, general merchandise manager for womenswear, who this year decided that the two classifications of product needed separate in-store merchandising to deliver a clear message to the shopper.

Now, by trying trend looks together, Bradlees is seeking to broadcast newness to the juniors customer. The chain's juniors business was planned separately from the misses buy for fall 1996, and separate departments have reappeared.

Howard Jacobs, president of Zanadi, a fashion-forward denim manufacturer believes the timing is auspicious. "Juniors is coming back with gusto. After a very rough two or three years, this Back-to-School is the best."

"Juniors has been a separate entity here for about a year. Business is very, very strong," confirms Woody Cozart, vice president, divisional merchandise manager at Pamida.

While several regional chains may be using juniors as part of their respective differentiation strategies, the separate positioning of juniors on the selling floor has not been accepted across the board by all regional or national mass market competitors.

For example, Ames president and ceo Joe Ettore observes that his stores are deriving a direct benefit from a focus on the opposite end of the age and style spec trum. and in the past year, Ames has put a higher priority on upgrading its children's assortment than on efforts to appeal to young men or juniors.

None of the Big Three chains are clearly on a juniors track either. Target, for instance, has yet to set a department with signs that denote "Juniors." However, Target does market to younger, trend-driven shoppers through xhilaration, a private label line that serves up a coherent mix of youth-oriented fashions. And parts of Target's Sostanza line no doubt also appeal to the young and trendy.

Kmart is considering breaking juniors out on the floor, although the chain is more focused today on courting the misses clientele. What juniors-friendly choices it offers are rolled into the general assortments of denim, licensed goods and sportswear. Still, Cecil Kearse, Kmart's vice president of merchandising presentation, says the chain is "looking at pulling out some of the more trendy stuff" to form a juniors presentation. But he cautions the move won't come "until we're sure it has staying power."

A section of Wal-Mart's apparel pad is emblazoned "Trends," but the fashion interpretations lack the sharpness of direction that would identify it as a juniors area. By spring, according to outgoing senior vice president, general merchandise manager John Lupo (just promoted to chief operating officer of Wal-Mart's international division), the chain will roll out a denim and denim-related Jordache program.

Apparel space is limited on the floors of all mass merchants; retailers have to pick their shots. But should they be aiming at juniors?

There are certainly a lot of potential customers. The U.S. Census Bureau projects there will be 26.5 million teenagers (ages 13 to 19) by January 1997, or roughly 10% of the population. This is equivalent in size to another segment of the population to whom discounters already cater with special discount days and a variety of in-store marketing events: seniors. Americans ages 65 to 80 will number 25.9 million as of January 1997.

Thus, between actual teens and those Generation Xers who choose to dress in the teen mode, there would seem to be a large enough universe to support a strong, focused appeal to the juniors market by mass merchants.

"Our juniors customers," says Clancy, "is a high schooler or someone who wants to dress like that. First, there's the true junior, sizes 7 to 14 and ages 12 to 15 or 18. Second, there's someone who wants to dress with that attitude."

Nevertheless, juniors merchandising doesn't come without risk. "We've never merchandised juniors this way as far as I know," says Angst. "It's definitely not a no-brainer; it's still evolving as we speak. But if we are going to attract that customer to Hills, we have to offer the same relative value as we offer to our misses. We'll give a little more punch to the presentation in this concentrated area on the floor, but we'll use the same benchmarks in price and markup."