Kids' styles grow up - Special Supplement: AM Apparel Merchandising

Discount Store News, April 5, 1993

Discounters and chains hope that pentup demand for new styles will ignite sales of children's apparel for the fall back-to-school season.

Retailers point to a change in consumer attitude that suggests shoppers are poised to embrace new colors and fashions, especially denims and styles based on adult trends. "We expect to see shoppers interested in denims, twills and the new rugby looks for fall for all children's sizes," predicts David R. Fielding, national product manager for children's at Sears, Roebuck and Co.

For girls sizes 4 to 6x, the hot trend for fall will be dresses, especially in fleece and denim, according to Gail Lindenman, divisional merchandise manager at Seacaucus, N.J.-based Jamesway. Older girls will, of course, also gravitate toward styles influenced by juniors. "There are things happening in the juniors department that we want to bring to the kid's market," says Bruce Katz, president of Andover Togs Inc.'s Sasson Girl's division. "90210 will be very big for us in sizes 7 to 14," adds Steve Katkin, executive vice president at Prange Way.

Spencer's, an infants and children's wear manufacturer, voices a vote for continued popularity of fleece, even in new dress styles. "We're seeing a greater demand for dresses all across the country," a spokesman says.

Retailers may be sure that fleece and denim will be the back-to-school best sellers, but the question merchants are still pondering is how to best merchandise kid's apparel in order to capture more sales.

Some chains are continuing with a Gap-style presentation, grouping by style rather that size. For example, all blue pocket T-shirts are housed together. This is a departure from the typical discount approach of merchandising all girls merchandise by size.

In its new prototype in Auburn Hills, Mich., for example, Kmart has taken a color and size merchandising strategy in fleece. Chairman Joe Antonini even made the comparison to the Gap during a tour of the store. "Look at this fleece presentation. . . It is more like a customer would expect to see at the Gap and just as good or better in our opinion."

Target has also revamped its kids area--as part of its Everyday Hero concept--to group kids products by style and color. Gitano has helped some retailers such as Caldor also adopt the product merchandising approach via its E.J. Gitano girls' line. Prange Way favors the style approach and will stick with that philosophy, says Katkin.

George Needleman, senior vice president at Venture, however, says his store still prefers to stock by size, a strategy he believes enhances the ease of shopping.

That debate may linger for sometime, but merchants agree that the price value equation still looms large in the consumer mindset.

The fact that children outgrow clothes so fast is not wasted on discounters. "We think customers favor discounters because they want the very best quality --at the best price--for their children who are going to grow out of a size every six months," says Donald Keeble, senior vice president, general merchandise manager for fashions at Kmart.

Adds Needleman, "parents are in our stores so often and we have the chance to make a great number of impressions on them and get them to think of us for kids clothes."

Discounters produce childrens apparel sales of $8.5 billion, or 40 percent of the entire market. What's more is that discounters' share is growing at the expense of department stores and specialty operators.

To tap into the burgeoning market, discounters such as Kmart Corp., Jamesway, Target and Venture stores are not only enlarging the physical size of the kids department, but are also pinpointing what styles work in each size classification.

Licensed merchandise will continue to play a key role this back-to-school season in several ranges. Discounters are sure that kids will be taking Mickey, Barney and The Little Mermaid into the classroom with them.

In fact, character merchandising has become discounters' ammunition against specialty and department stores.

"We're doing well with licensed items. It is one of our advantages over competitors like department stores," says Needleman. "We have the popular licenses."

Retailers welcome the new popularity of characters such as Barney and Beauty and the Beast. The success of these items has restored retailers' faith in licensed goods after a few flops such as Batman. But retailers say it is still important to understand the dynamics of licensing in order to have the right merchandise in the proper sizes.

The best-selling characters in boys and girls are slightly different than those in infants' clothing, notes Needleman. "You see a break, where boys might go from a Mickey to a Ninja Turtle or Tasmania," he says.

Buyers admit they are still skittish when it comes to a new license. "That's why we feel stronger about characters with staying power like Mickey Mouse. But with the advent of kids videos, we do think Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin will be around for a long time," says Lindenman at Jamesway.