The Suit Magazine

Clothing store giants like Bloomingdale’s, Nike, Anchor Blue and Charlotte Russe are going small, reducing the floor space for the clothes they sell at the retail level.  In fact, at Anchor Blue, merchandise was consolidated and condensed, leaving 2,500 square feet of empty space in the store.  The result:  foot traffic is up 7 percent, and sales are up 23 percent.  Many clothing retailers are following the same path, eliminating parts of a store’s floor space, or renting smaller units.  
 
The current trend accomplishes two goals.  One, it cuts costs.  And just as importantly, it provides a different buying environment and perspective to the customer.  Tom Shaw, the head of Anchor Blue, said, “We don’t want a department store feel.  With that much product in that much space the customer can get lost, not know where to go.”
 
Today’s retail customer is more focused in their purchasing routine.  Paco Underhill, founder and CEO of Envirosells, said, “The customer walks in the door, and often sees a huge selection of stuff in a multi-brand store and can’t figure out what to buy and ends up buying nothing.”
 
Strategies of going small include: mobile clothes-racks, moving cash register tables, and innovatively designed spaces that can be easily transformed at anytime.  Those strategies also include tailoring the environment to the client.  “We can be very specific to a customer and to a marketplace, and that’s what we need to do,” Michael Gould, Chairman and CEO of Bloomingdale’s said.  And cutting space in a retail store also brings a reduction in payroll costs.
 
            
 

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