Junior apparel discount

* Smart retailers and manufacturers are reaping the benefits of plus-size fashions in a period of otherwise flat sales in the women's wear area.

Unit and dollar sales of plus sizes rose in nearly all apparel categories during the first half of this year, marking a sharp difference from slack or lower numbers in juniors and missy, according to data compiled by The NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y., research firm.

"We consistently plan women's (plus) sizes to perform better than regular sizes, and up to this point they've been doing that," says Dick Zimmerman, women's merchandise manager for Kmart. "Going forward, we're looking at women's (plus) sizes as a growth area, as we continue to understand it."

Manufacturers and retailers have "realized that about 35 percent of the population is this size," says Dick Scudder, women's buyer for Bluefield, Va.-based Ammar's Inc., which operates 19 Magic Mart stores in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Keys to success are variety and fashion, which is filtering down to the mass market at a faster rate. "We interpret fashions into large size as quickly as we can," says Alan Shamah, merchandiser for apparel maker Justin Allen. "You give them fashion, they'll buy it."

At O'Fallon, Mo.-based Venture Stores, "Our plus-size customer is very fashion-conscious (and) expects to find the styles which are popular in missy in her size as well," says Liz Levin, senior vice president and general merchandise manager of ladies wear.

Formerly, a large woman "had to either spend more time at the department store, or walk into a mass merchant and be disappointed over the amount of fashion offered to her," says Lucia Almquist, vice president of merchandising for Bonjour. "Now more mass merchants are looking at fashion" in plus sizes.

Plus-size items doing particularly well are shorts and fleece, categories whose favorite retail channel continues to be discount department stores. Retailers also point to skirts and other items made of soft fabrics. "Any type of soft dressing is really driving the business," says Kmart's Zimmerman, pointing in particular to rayons and polyester/rayon blends. Rayon, he says, has been made more acceptable to the mass market; it shrink less, holds color, and wears well as a fluid piece of cloth.

"Challis really picked up this year and will be very strong for spring," says Susan Wallack, merchandiser for Truly Yours, which makes sportswear under its own name as well as for Sasson. She says skirts have been particularly strong, notably flannel and 4-button wrap-around styles priced $19.99-$24.99.

In intimate apparel, "anything that's pretty, feminine, colorful, catches the eye," says Ingrid Keiris, merchandiser for N.Y. Gelmart.

Factoring in all retail tiers, plus sizes (defined as size 16 and up) out-performed all other size categories in terms of percentage increases in both unit and dollar volumes in the first half of this year compared to the year-ago period, according to NPD. Although missy gained more in units, rising 11 percent to 2.6 billion, it increased only 0.9 percent in dollar volume to $20.6 billion. By comparison, units of the plus category rose 8 percent to 275 million, and dollar volumes rose 7 percent to $5 billion.

Petite sizes also showed strong gains over the same time period. In all retail channels, first-half '93 petite unit volumes rose 12 percent to 68 million and dollars rose 6 percent to $1.9 billion, over year-ago figures, NPD reports. But the short sizes really shone in discount department stores, where units rose 10 percent to 7.9 million and dollars went up a whopping 22 percent to $118 million.

Still, many discount stores are not known for their variety of petite offerings. Because items can easily be hemmed to a shorter size, petite-size women demand fewer special sizes than large-size women do.

The movement in plus sizes is backed by more aggressive advertising and instore merchandising and intensified buying policies. "On every ad, I run at least two items that are |Full-Figure,'" says Magic Mart's Scudder, citing the title his stores use to identify plus sizes.

Improved merchandising also caters to the demand for special sizes among all age groups. "Basically, you have three kinds of plus shoppers, matronly, misses and young. You have to serve them all," says Jack Bower, general merchandise manager for Pamida Discount Centers. To better meet the plus shopper's demand for variety and fashion, Pamida has two buyers who now concentrate solely on plus sizes rather than splitting their time between plus and misses. The concentrated buying effort is needed to keep up with changing fashions as well as surging demand.

The results can be seen in the dedicated plus-size areas of many stores.

At a recently opened Caldor store in Freeport, N.Y., plus sizes were displayed in their own corner of women's apparel on nine floor fixtures and along a wall. Items included 100 percent silk private label blouses tagged at $26.99, Lee jeans in black or indigo with elastic waists for $24.99-$26.99, colorful crinkled tops of an 82/12 acetate/nylon blend for $17.99, and flowered, cotton Gitano tops for $12.99. Several other plus size items at Caldor were mixed on racks of regular sizes, such as Sasson sleepwear, Gelmart intimate apparel, bodywear and activewear.

Plus-size merchandising is even more pronounced at a Kmart serving a similar market in Levittown, N.Y. Under the prominently displayed heading "Women's Sizes," plus is merchandised on a dozen rounders and four-ways along a wall display. The section ranges in items from embroidered 100 percent cotton denim shirts at $16.99 to career coordinate sets of printed jackets at $25.99 and pants, $19.99. Kmart generally maintains a 2,200-sq.-ft. plus-size section, accounting for about a fifth of its floor space devoted to ladies' wear.

Although it merchandises jeans, fleece and cotton casuals under labels such as Chic, Gitano and Hanes, Kmart relies mostly on private labels for its plus-size sportswear. That enables it to use its own designers to develop trendy fashions with manufacturers, Zimmerman says. "I want them to take me to the edge of fashion, and then we decide what to put in sportswear."

Research data indicate that the demand for plus sizes will remain strong due to a shift in the U.S. population toward a larger percentage of people who are overweight. As people age, they're more likely to gain weight, and statistics show that the largest age group of the U.S. population--the baby boomers--has reached the age when pounds begin to accumulate quickly. While the number of people "above their desirable weight" is only 7.5 percent for people aged 18-29, it rises sharply to 13.6 percent for people aged 30-44, and to 18.1 percent for those in the 45-64 age bracket, according to the 1990 U.S. Census.

As retailers and manufacturers better serve the women's plus-size market, they're building rewarding relationships with consumers. "It's a fun business to do," says Bonjour's Almquist. "The customer is appreciative of being able to come into the store and buy fashion."

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