NEW YORK — Teens are heading back to school, but it’s the retailers catering to them that are getting the first test.
They’re hoping their expanded selections of funky tee shirts and hip-hugging jeans will attract students like Dale Gibson, 15, who struggles to find trendy clothes in their stores. Ditto for Danielle Martinez, 14, who thinks their merchandise is dull. Same goes for Rochelle Wilson, 19, who stopped shopping them altogether.
“All the clothes seem the same,” said Wilson, a native of Pembroke Pines, Fla. who prefers shopping at H&M. “There’s nothing to make people say, ‘Oh wow, where did she get that from?’”
The “Big Three” teen merchants Abercrombie & Fitch, Aeropostale and American Eagle once defined fashion for fickle teens. But they lost their mojo by not stocking the jeans and tees that their customers covet. So, teens flocked to chains like H&M and Forever 21 that cater to twenty-somethings with up-to-the minute trendy styles that they can mix and match. Now, as the down economy batters both teens and their parents, teen clothing chains are having mixed success as they try to lure young people back into their stores by offering more of the things they love – boot cut jeans, fleece bottoms and accessories.
“The teen consumer has always been a fickle consumer and if you’re not on trend, you’re going to be punished,’” said Michael Appel, an apparel industry consultant and director at AlixPartners. “A lot of teens have all the loyalty of a flea.”
Teen merchants depend on the back-to-school season, the second-biggest shopping period of the year behind the winter holidays, because during that time they can make up to 25 percent of their annual revenue. This year, the average family is expected to spend about $603.63 during the back-to-school season – which runs from mid-July through mid-September – down slightly from $606.40 last year, according to the National Retail Federation. And spending in teen stores accounts for about 19 percent of the $85.8 billion in annual revenue generated from family’s spending on clothes.
But teen clothing sellers, which had routinely posted strong sales gains for a decade or more, have had a tough time since the recession began in 2007. One challenge is that their core customers have been pummeled by the economy: Teens have record high unemployment, about 25 percent compared with the overall unemployment rate roughly at 9 percent. Adding to that, their parents who give them allowance money have been hit with a combination of stagnant wages and higher costs.
Michelle Scott, from New York, says she’s cut nearly in half the amount she’s spending on school clothes for her 15-year-old twins to $250 apiece this year because her household budget is being stretched. “Rent just went up, the cost of living is different, food went up, clothes went up,” she lamented.
Another hurdle has been the shift in how teens shop, says Kit Yarrow, co-author of Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings are Revolutionizing Retail. She said teen stores once resonated more with teens with their logos emblazoned on graphic tees. But now, teens want variety so they can create their own look.
“The old way to create status was by buying a look from a retailer that is hot,” she said. “Today, status is more about the attention they get being the curator of a look themselves.”
Abercrombie & Fitch Co., known for its edgy catalogs and racy advertising using scantily-clad models, lost sales to cheaper competitors during the recession when teens and their parents were cutting back on buying its higher priced line of jeans and shirts.
To get its customers back, Abercrombie made its assortment trendier, lowered its prices and cut costs.
The strategy has paid off. The chain reported second-quarter revenue at stores open at least one year rose by 9 percent – its sixth-straight quarterly increase.
American Eagle Outfitters also is turning in encouraging results after three straight years of revenue declines in stores open at least a year. The chain had gone wrong by offering too broad of a selection, leading to too little inventory of its most popular items — particularly jeans.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012. All Rights Reserved.
