New products and smart displays build juvenile furniture sales

Discount Store News, Feb 6, 1995

NATIONWIDE DSN REPORT -- Convenience and product line extensions continue to be key factors in juvenile product sales. As discounters add shelf space to these potentially high-margin departments and seek to differentiate their selections to compete with the emerging new superstores, vendors are leading the way through innovative design.

The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association will later this year release 1994 sales data for various product categories. But it is already clear, said JPMA spokeswoman Debbie Albert, that certain products, such as bouncers, are winning over consumers by presenting innovation that builds on already familiar product lines.

As extensions of the infant walker product, bouncers constitute a rapidly expanding area. The Exer-Saucer from Even-Flo and the Play It Safe Exercise and Activity Center from Summer Infant Products are two examples. The Baby Treadmill from Safety 1st offers a similar concept: a safe, easily monitored way for infants and toddlers to engage in aerobic activity.

Play It Safe was among the products receiving Show Off awards at the JPMA 25th annual exposition last fall. Judging criteria included safety, utility, design, marketability, innovation and function. With a patented bouncing system, 360-degree swivel seat design, a recessed eating tray and five play stations to encourage hand/eye coordination, this product offers multiple well-engineered features.

As the current baby boom-let ages, product selections are keeping pace. "Toddler beds is a category that is still growing," Albert said. The JPMA is in the process of drafting certification requirements for this classification, one indication of widespread popularity. She noted that bedding designs keep evolving to satisfy the consumer demand for fashion.

And discount stores must now contend with the relatively small but growing baby and children's superstore chains.

Baby Superstore, Greenville, S.C., plans to erect 20 new stores (five are relocations) in '95, most during the second half of the year. The Southeastern chain will mainly fill in markets in Texas, Georgia and elsewhere. Hinting at an interest in the New York metro region, Jodie Taylor, cfo, said the chain is researching areas in Connecticut and New Jersey

Taylor added that EDLP-oriented, 47-unit Baby Superstore would have "no problem" meeting its projected 25% comp store gain for the last quarter of 1994. Since going public at $18 per share Sept. 27, the trend-setting company's stock lately traded at more than $45 per share.

Other companies are using the superstore approach, and are typically leading with apparel. LiL' Things, for instance, serves the needs of parents with children aged newborn to six years with an evenly mixed merchandise offering that includes 30% apparel. The 13-store Arlington, Texas-based chain announced it will open a 30,000-sq.-ft. superstore in Oklahoma City in May.

Mass merchants must strike the right gross margin ROI balance within far less floor space. Intelligent adjacency is one tactic. The latest Ames prototype, based on the reopened Mt. Pocono, Pa., store, displays car seats, strollers and the like on shelves and partitions that frame the infants' and toddlers' apparel department.

Buying the right mix of new and traditional products is half the battle. Finding the optimum balance for display on the selling floor is just as crucial as the still-fragmented infants' and children's product industry grows ever more competitive.