In Fashion Retailing, Little Things Count
Leave it to teenage girls to try to take the Scrooge out of Christmas.
Snapping up purses, beanies, toe socks and even men’s ties to wear as belts, girls are adding a little life to a ho-hum shopping season.
Linda Le, 16, of Santa Ana was doing some Christmas shopping Thursday at South Coast Plaza. She had just bought an $8 pair of white socks with purple flowers for one friend at Quiksilver Inc.’s Roxy store and was heading toGap and Wet Seal for other gifts: a scarf and some low-cost earrings.
“Instead of buying shoes or something expensive, I just like to buy socks for my friends ... or everyday wear like a beanie or a scarf,” Le said, noting that she was spending about $5 to $10 per gift this year.
Her 12-year-old sister, Clare, had just purchased a pair of slippers -- pink with cherries and a sprinkle design.
The accessories surge isn’t just limited to teens. For the holidays, more modest gift items, such as semiprecious stone jewelry and cashmere mufflers, are proving hot sellers as consumers of all ages hunt for bargains in the midst of a slow economy.
Accessories sales are expected to increase 7% this year to about $3 billion, according to NPD FashionWorld, a business unit of market research firm NPD Group in New York. By comparison, apparel sales overall are expected to be flat at about $166 billion.
“We’ve kind of been through the wave of large, significant purchases,” said Adriennet Tennant, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities. “It’s become much more widely accepted to have something that’s just fun.”
Even some higher-end retailers -- where penny-pinching is a relative concept -- are seeing the trend. A well-heeled shopper at Nordstrom or Saks Fifth Avenue will accessorize with a $200 purse long after she has stopped collecting $1,000 outfits, noted Marshal Cohen, NPD FashionWorld’s co-president.
But it is teenagers -- snapping up scarves, beanies, hair clips and childlike socks -- who are driving the boom.
Younger consumers have less money to spend than adults but are particularly determined not to leave a store empty-handed, experts say.
“Buying smaller-priced items allows them to shop in their favorite stores and complete” a purchase, said Michael Wood, vice president of Teenage Research Unlimited in Northbrook, Ill. “They might have only 10 bucks or 20 bucks in their pocket, but they can come home with something.”
In turn, sales of accessories have become an important growth vehicle for teen apparel companies. Huntington Beach-based Quiksilver, Anaheim-based Pacific Sunwear of California and Costa Mesa-based Paul Frank Industries Inc. all say accessories now account for about a fifth to a quarter of their total sales.
These days, teen “style” involves draping floor-dragging scarves around their necks and wrapping men’s ties -- the nerdier the better -- around their waists, according to Barbara Fields, an Los Angeles trend forecaster.
“Girls are shopping in the guys department, girls are shopping in their daddies’ closets,” she said. “Girls want old vintage ties, not the Jerry Garcia ones.”
Oddball accessories such as stickers, mirrors and magnets also are being purchased to decorate the inside of school lockers, Fields said. Cell phone accessories continue to be hot, as are slippers -- especially if they have a face design on them or make noise.
Often, stores place accessories near the cash register to prompt impulse purchases.
In the juniors section of Nordstrom at South Coast Plaza, tables alongside the register are heaped with necklaces, earrings and tiny purses. Shoppers waiting in line could grab a pair of sunglasses for $10 or a bracelet-style watch for $28.
In a testament to the promise of accessory sales, privately held Paul Frank Industries -- best known for the monkey face that appears on many of its products -- will soon have a dozen stores.
The company got its start in 1995, hawking vinyl wallets and purses out of a garage in Huntington Beach. Over the years, it has added women’s sportswear, pajamas, housewares and men’s clothes. But accessories remain its bedrock, accounting for one-fourth of revenue.
At Pacific Sunwear, big sellers include socks, beanies and wallets. Tote bags, meanwhile, are “just killin’ it,” said the company’s president, Tim Harmon. In fact, accessories sales jumped 29% last month and will account for about 18% of all sales this year, up from 13% in 2001.
“We even created a gift table in our stores for the juniors customers for the first time to feature all these stocking suffers,” Harmon said.
During a conference call with Wall Street analysts Wednesday, a top Quiksilver executive said the accessories business at its Roxy division is “on fire,” accounting for about 20% of revenue. And that number is on the rise, said Heidi Draper, vice president of sales for Roxy accessories. Girls are buying shell necklaces, beaded bracelets and embroidered purses.
And socks. Clutching her Roxy purchase, Linda Le talked of buying more accessories -- though not for herself. “There are too many friends,” she said, “and a lot of stuff to buy.”
