It’s not uncommon to find too many teen stores at local malls these days, while older women have to search high and low for shops that cater to them.
As retailers fight to win over customers, the apparel market is shrinking for mature women. The company that owns Petite Sophisticate, Casual Corner and Casual Corner Annex recently announced it was closing 525 stores, leaving a void in many malls and fewer choices for many women who shopped there.
Many women bought their first business suits at these chain stores and continued shopping there for career clothes.
« I liked their suits and dresses and they fit right, » said 4-foot-11 Yvonne Perez, who works for Frontier Enterprises in San Antonio. « There’s so many places that say petite, but they are not. At this store, you can buy something and go home and wear it the next day without getting it altered. »
Paradoxically, Perez had too many choices online and in catalogs.
Perez hasn’t been at Petite Sophisticate for about a 11/2 years, but she said the store’s recent sales will draw her back.
Too many choices have caused many women’s apparel stores to shutter, consolidate or sell to other companies. Some have started to add teen clothing lines.
« The competition is ferocious, » said Kurt Barnard, president of Retail Forecasting in New Jersey. « The women’s fashion business and also the men’s is one where you have to roll the dice and never really know when the customer is going to like something. There’s an extraordinary saturation of sameness, and the customer is getting tired of it. »
Market research firm NPD Group said U.S. retail apparel sales were up in 2004 after three years of decline. Apparel sales totaled $173 billion in 2004, a 4 percent increase from $166 billion in 2003. Last year, sales of women’s apparel produced about $95 billion, an increase of nearly 5 percent.
But the next big trend that could increase sales next year is clothing for people in the 50-something age range, according to Stores Magazine. By 2010, it says, people 40 and older will be spending $1 trillion more than those between 18 and 34.
Retailers such as Ann Taylor, Chico’s, Talbots and Coldwater Creek are leading the way in women’s apparel, all claiming to target women looking for that polished and professional look.
With more department stores carrying a lot of denim and clothes for the younger market, only a few companies cater to women over 40, said Margaret Whitfield, an analyst with Ryan Beck & Co. Inc. in Florida.
Some companies are catching on, she said, including Gap Inc.’s Forth & Towne, which is in about 10 test markets nationwide and targets women from 40 to 59.
Talbots spokeswoman Margery Myers said it feels it has the perfect customer.
« In terms of the 35-plus customer, they are the best customer to have, » Myers said. « Statistically speaking, they are the largest segment of the population and the fastest-growing, and will be so for decades to come. »
But at the same time, Myers said, the apparel industry has become crowded and there’s more competition. And it’s not just other clothing merchants. She said they are also fighting the hardware stores, where shoppers are focusing on their homes rather than filling their closets.
One local retailer, Twigland Fashions, isn’t worried about losing its customer to hardware stores. Twigland has shunned the mature market for what it feels is the more lucrative teen segment.
In the late 1990s, when the teen market started to take off, Twigland decided to target the 15-to-25 age range rather than the 25-to-35 group, said company controller Charles Kirbo.
In 1971, the chain started out as a small shop downtown and was popular with its Christine’s stores. Now, with three brands of A’Gaci, Agaci Too and AGX at North Star, Ingram and South Park malls, the 32-store chain is expanding its junior concept to South Florida.
Even with baby boomers getting older and spending more, Kirbo said, Twigland is too entrenched with its niche to go back.
« We don’t want to lose our focus, » Kirbo said. « The older market is set in their ways. The man prefers Polo and women prefer Liz Claiborne. We would have to do a lot to break them from that. »
SOURCE: MySA.com
Original text can be found at http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/stories/MYSA121705.1D.womensapparel.21371b03.html
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