New Store in South Coast Plaza : Upscale N.Y. Clothier Sets Sights on Southland’s Career Women
Alcott & Andrews, the classy New York-based women’s clothier, is betting--and heavily--that the recently expanded South Coast Plaza has as much drawing power as its developers have been promising.
Last week the 10-store chain kicked off a three-week, Southern California television blitz to air more than 100 30-second spots through Nov. 14 in an effort to reach shoppers from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Alcott & Andrews would not say what the campaign is costing, but industry analysts estimated that TV time will cost an estimated $500,000 to $2 million.
The commercials--along with newspaper ads and a 220,000-piece direct-mail campaign--are aimed at locating the creme de la creme of executive women and getting them into the newest Alcott & Andrews, which opened Friday in South Coast Plaza’s Crystal Court.
The store is Alcott & Andrews’ only Southern California location, making the ads the first attempt by a specialty retailer to attract customers to Costa Mesa from such a large area.
The commercials feature two navy-blazered career women who are good candidates to become the Bartles & James of the rag trade. One pauses in front of a mahogany desk and announces, “I’m Alcott. The other answers, “I’m Andrews.” The WASP-ish pair, actually two actresses, promise to provide “elegant . . . quality” clothes to the businesswoman who is too busy running from meeting to meeting to traipse from store to store.
Their pitch is aimed at a very small, very select market: women who earn at least $50,000 a year.
President and founder Michael S. Jeffries describes the ideal customer as “active, involved, successful and affluent.”
Or, as Michelle Davis, a specialty retail analyst in New York with Oppenheimer & Co., said “Career women today have money and they don’t have time.”
To meet that need, Alcott & Andrews provides an oversupply of salespeople, all of them on commission, who are trained to push multiple sales of entire wardrobes with their upscale clientele.
The stores are oriented toward quick, convenient shopping, with the all natural-fabric garments displayed in what salespeople call “color blocks,” with skirts, sweaters, jackets and dresses grouped according to hue. There are handbags and shoes arriving in February.
Styles are “updated classic,” which translates to a very corporate, very conservative look. The Costa Mesa store displays a variety of silk and cashmeres, mostly in pastels, burgundy and navy, blacks and creams, and earth tones.
The idea is to get the career woman into the one-stop store. “Once we get her there, we own her for most cases,” Jeffries said. So far, he adds, the Costa Mesa store has exceeded projections with customers from throughout Orange and Los Angeles counties, Jeffries said.
Upscale Prices
While the TV commercial actresses promise “prices that won’t insult (shoppers’) intelligence,” they could assault some pocketbooks. A two-piece suit with silk blouse easily runs from $300 to $500. Silk dresses run from about $125 to $500.
The formula seems to have worked. While the closely held chain reportedly lost about $500,000 in 1984, its first year of operation, volume reached $25 million in 1985. Jeffries estimates it will hit about $40 million by Jan. 31, the end of the fiscal year.
While he won’t reveal profits, Jeffries said the chain’s stores have an almost phenomenal sales average of $400 per square foot. Retail analyst Fred Wintzer of Baltimore’s Alex Brown & Sons estimates that the chain works on a 100% markup and a profit margin of 35% to 40%.
Just how successful the chain is over the long term remains to be seen. Many major retail competitors--including Saks, Bullock’s and Robinson’s--offer some of the same specialized services that Alcott is offering. “I don’t think people will drive from L.A. so easily, with the extraordinary selection of stores in their own market,” said the manager of one Beverly Hills clothier.
