Only 7.5% of Off Price Show Attendees are Off Price Retailers. Want to Know who the Rest Are – Maybe Some of Your Competitors?

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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I was crunching some numbers for a report to our corporate leadership this week and discovered a startling statistic – only 7.5% of our Off Price Show attendees represent Off Price Retailers. This figure has become highly relevant to us because one of the main reasons buyer prospects (who’ve never been to our event) cite for deciding not to attend the Off Price Show is that “we don’t buy off price.” They, like many merchandisers out there still operate under the assumption that the off price market is dominated with shmada (i.e. ill colors, broken fits, rags).

Of equal astonishment to me is the fact that more than one third of our attendees – 36% to be exact – are boutique/specialty store owners and buyers! I knew there are a significant and growing number of boutique buyers coming to Off Price, but I didn’t realize that they were the largest category of buyers coming to our show. Now, do you think these fashionistas are coming for the shmada?

In an interview I conducted for our recently released Issue 12.3 of This is Off Price (August Pre-Show Planner), Sherri Zweifel of Euphoria (a unique boutique concept with two stores in posh Milwaukee suburbs) said that she comes to the Off Price Show to find quality non-branded accessories, home & gift, and ladies’ apparel that “are not mass-produced and can NOT be found anywhere else.” (SEE THE REST OF THIS FEATURE ARTICLE AT http://www.offpriceshow.com/magazine/2009_v12_i3/OPS_12-3_Euphoria.pdf). And by the way, you can also get quality high quality accessories and handbags in this growth category of our show. Leading brands for both men and women include Bass, Chinese Laundry, Claiborne, Geoffrey Beane, Michael Kors, MUDD, Nicole Miller, Nine West, Perry Ellis, Sean John, Steve Madden, and XOXO.

In the dress category, which continues to be a big seller in today’s retail, hot brands that you can find at our show include Anne Klein, BCBG, Calvin Klein, Chetta B, DKNY, Laundry, Ralph Lauren and Three Dots.

I think I’ve made my point as to why the boutique buyers are coming in droves. They are the #1 category of buyers coming to Off Price, followed by wholesalers/distributors (15%) who are hot for the below wholesale deals on branded basics, children’s and men’s and women’s apparel. Tied with the Off Price Retailers in 3rd place are the general merchandisers, who prefer our show over the other “GM” events because of the values and variety our 470+ vendors offer in one venue.

The rest of the attendee groups (each below 6% of the total delegation) indicate that I’ve only scratched the surface on the various categories our vendors have in stock that entices such a broad spectrum of merchandisers: amusement/water parks, army/navy surplus, casinos, convenience stores, discount retailers, dollar stores, farm supply, golf retailers, home & gift retailers, hospital/healthcare, importer/exporter, mail order, online retail, screen printers, sporting/camping retailers (seeking excellent varieties in outerwear, swimwear, licensed NFL, MLB and others), supermarkets, thrift stores and variety stores.

So come find out what your competitors may know already, OR may not know if you’re lucky enough. We live in the most value-driven consumer market in our lifetimes. Why not add the most value-driven trade show in the retail industry to your sourcing matrix?

Come check us out or at least contact me to learn more (262.754.6910 or dbrowne@offpriceshow.com). We look forward to helping you add more margins and more excitement to your store.

Excellent Opportunities for Off Price Show, Top Ten and Others to Help Make America “A Nation of Shopkeepers!”

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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I read a fantastic article in the Wall Street Journal by writer Joseph Epstein entitled “In Praise of Shopkeepers.” You must read it: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124770241303048557.html.

In this piece, the writer – a fellow Evanstonian (IL) comments on the changing retail in what was once the “Shopping Mecca” of Chicago’s northshore. Epstein takes consolation in the fact that the shopping adventure he once knew as a child can be experienced just a few miles south in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood. A few remarks about an “unpretentious and excellent shoe store,” and a “thrift store loaded with surprising items,” and Epstein speaks the language of the shopper who longs for the “wow factor” that has been missing in today’s corporate big box retail. “The element of unpredictability,” Epstein writes, “of delightful surprise, should be part of the adventure of shopping — an element precluded by the standard stores.”

This is vindication for local businessmen and women like myself (I was then GM for an eclectic group of 4 restaurants that were big players in downtown Evanston) who fought to protect independent retail against an initiative to bring in TIFD-funded big box powers with no real stake in the community back in 1998. Ten years later, not only has speculative risk not worked, but the city fathers scared away entrepreneurs and renaissance retailers in favor of becoming a second rate Lincoln Park (a trendy but over-priced and over-crowded Chicago northside neighborhood).

Going back to the bigger picture, Epstein makes two excellent points as to why independent shopkeepers are critical to our economy and to our society.

“‘England is a nation of shopkeepers,’ remarked Napoleon,…suggesting that…the English, as mere shopkeepers, were unfit to fight the French. Well, we know how the shopkeepers fared at a place called Waterloo. No great surprise, really. Considerable courage and perserverence are required to start and keep a good shop running. Especially is this so today, when real estate rental is expensive, taxes on profits high, and the prospect of being clobbered by a national chain store moving in discourage the initiative needed to open a useful shop.”

For this country to lift itself from the ruins of recession, we need to become a nation of shopkeepers. Self-sufficient people willing to take the risk of opening or acquiring a business can compete with the big boys through better service and sourcing the pleasantly surprising items at even more surprising prices.

The Off Price Show can furnish them with the best deals on a wide selection of quality apparel, accessories, footwear and home & gift. Online vehicles such as OffPriceShow.com, OffPriceshowrooms.com, TopTenWholesale.com, the newly re-designed OffPriceNetwork.com and other JP products can connect indy retailers with suppliers willing to deal in smaller quantities who can also drop-ship anywhere in the world.

Epstein ends his article with a second excellent point, that “Running a good shop is a service to one’s community, of much greater value, in my view, than the work of two hundred social workers, five hundred psychotherapists, and a thousand second-rate poets… A nation of shopkeepers, far from being the put-down Napoleon thought, sounds more and more like an ideal to which a healthy country ought to aspire.”

To this end, I invite all independent and smaller chain retailers to check us out at the show, online and of course, at JP’s sites. Jason, I hope you see this and list your products proudly with some sagely comment. And Jason, I also challenge you and your colleagues, especially at your new property Manufacturer.com, to extend yourselves to the smaller apparel retailers, home & gift shops, general merchandisers, and wholesalers, to take advantage of the online directories and links to vendors so that they can get a “marginal” edge on the competition. Oh wait, you do that already! You know have the Englishman (Daniel Brindley), now help us rebuild this nation of shopkeepers by bridging the gap between excellent values worldwide and THE RIGHT PEOPLE who know how to merchandise them.

Big Retailers Need to Open their Eyes to New Sourcing Opportunities in Below Wholesale Clothing Before it’s too late

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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I was talking to our Senior Vice President, David Lapidos, this morning, and he was in complete disbelief about a large retailer who would not give out the name of their CMO. As a retired off price specialist with over 30 years of experience in the trade, he recalled to me how – back in the day when New York was full of retailers – many of them would have open hours in which the vendors would come in and present their goods, and there were always buyers there to source. He was reminded of how T.J. Maxx ALWAYS returns phone calls from prospective vendors, even if it takes them a week. According to David, they all understood the importance of NO MISSED OPPORTUNITIES. But this Chicago-based retailer that’s seen much better days has a policy in which they do not give out employee names. Read more

Army Navy Military Expo (ANM Expo) joins Off Price in August

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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We are very pleased to welcome the Army Navy Military Expo (ANM Expo) to our Off Price Show in August.

 This “show within a show” consists of about 100 suppliers of military apparel and accessories, and will attract a delegation of 900 buyers, some of which are also Off-Price Show buyers who are very pleased with the one-stop shop.

 We had a very good meeting this week with David Castlegrant and Eric Brackmann from David Castlegrant and Associates, the management firm for the ANM Expo.  Their vendors also share our excitement about the new partnership as their category is often lost or under-promoted at the larger general merchandise shows.

For more information on the ANM Expo, go to:

http://www.armynavymilitaryexpo.com/

The Off-Price Community and Me

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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We are grateful for the continued presence of the Off Price Specialist Center on this blog.This poat comes from Dan Browne (I think) and it’s mainly about some of the personalities that make the Off Price shows some of our favorite events on the calendar.
On behalf of the Off-Price Specialist Center, including founder Bill Jage; CEO Steve Krogulski; Executive Show Director Julie “Over” Ichiba; Show Director and fellow Crossword junkie Carol Fitzmaurice; Queen of Classic Rock Pam Payne Dillon, VP David Lapidos – the Peter Clemenza of the Off-Price Family; Director of Operations and fellow lefty (which means she’s cooler than most of you) Tricia Barglof; Buyer Relations Director/Marketing Manager/ROOKIE OF THE YEAR Mary Spitzer (no relation, seriously, she’s never even been to New York, but she might be there in January and October 2009 when Off-Price takes more bites of the Big Apple); Marketing and Operations Coordinator Katie “I get projects done for you in a New York minute (speaking of the Big Apple)” Chapman; Deb Reynolds (my new neighbor from New Berlin) and everyone else from the Off-Price/Tarsus team and overall vendor/buyer Off-Price Community, I am honored to participate in this blog made available to us by our friends and partners from Top Ten Wholesale.

Justin Prescott has advised us to make these blogs personal, and it’s easy to do when you are part of an internal team and broader customer base that considers the Off-Price Show to be one big family. Notice I didn’t say “happy.” And I don’t mean that in a negative sense. When we have our disputes and are often times forced to make difficult decisions that aren’t always popular for some, it’s because our people are very passionate about their businesses, about the Off-Price Show and the industry in general. And there’s always a healing process because everyone knows how hard we work and how much the Off-Price team really cares about our “family.”

You will notice I spared the first two members of the team – founder Bill Jage and CEO Steve Krogulski – from the Berman-esque nicknames I gave the rest of the group. These guys took a big chance on me about five years ago when they selected my firm to work on the first re-branding campaign for Off-Price. After a successful effort involving my former employer, Chicago-based Trungale, Egan & Associates and the Off-Price team, I was hired by Steve and Bill to launch a new event for our parent company Tarsus and become the eventual Marketing Director for our exciting portfolio of US products – namely Off-Price.

For the second time in my professional career, I’ve had the great privilege to work closely with an entrepreneur who was a visionary and was way ahead of his time. First, it was Chicago restaurant mogul Steve Prescott, who built an empire of four conceptually unique businesses in historic Evanston, Illinois, after two failed ventures in Chicago. Now of course, it’s Bill Jage, who made tremendous personal and professional sacrifices to make the Off-Price Show the #1 (and perhaps only) show of its kind in the apparel industry. Even though he has been semi-retired from Off-Price, it is always a big deal to see him at the shows and receive his support and consultation on an ongoing basis. His endorsement of our 2008 marketing campaign at the show last February was greatly appreciated, as our approach was a bit of a departure from traditional trade show marketing.

And while Steve Krogulski claims to not possess Bill’s entrepreneurial spirit, he has great marketing vision and a willingness to take chances. He also has that entrepreneur’s slash small businessman’s work ethic. He likes getting on the phone and pounding out the “sales-type” calls, as well as pouding the pavement on the show floor to get customer feedback in a manner that results in very positive relationships. He reads business sections and trade pubs cover to cover. He then takes this feedback and constantly challenges marketing to come up with new ideas, to expand our more personal approach to the creative to include the other retail and end-user sectors that can benefit from Off-Price (e.g. gas stations, zoos, museums, schools, hospitals, recreation and other publicly funded departments, etc.).

At a recent post-February all-staff meeting, Steve congratulated Marketing Coordinator Mary Spitzer and myself with personal training gift certificates to be redeemed by his own trainer at the health club below our office. Words can not express our gratitude to him for this accolade. A big part of his acknowledgment came from an exhibitor who was amazed by the influx of international buyers at the February Show. This exhibitor wrote a very significant order with a buyer from a developing country who had excellent credit. In short, a lot of the success on our recent marketing efforts is directly attributable to Steve’s challenges to us since taking over as CEO in 2006. These challenges include getting students more involved in Off-Price, doing more trend-spotting at the show, expanding our internet and publishing capabilities, and actively engaging both the new and various segments of our buyer community to make Off-Price a stronger and constantly evolving value proposition to their businesses.

I would also like to acknowledge many of the exhibitors and buyers at Off-Price who I made a positive connection with at our last show. Rick and Rob Bosch and Beth Mendick from Alliance Wholesale allowed our students to source a spa outfit for me to wear at the Opening Night Cocktail reception as part of our TOP$ promotion. The Speedo suit, goggles and bathing cap, along with the skulls t-shirt were a big hit. Rob gave me the t-shirt because he ended up writing a new order with a guy who saw me modeling it at the party! I was like Hansel that night! Beth worked closely with me in selecting the gear. We figured out at the August ‘06 Show that my brother Terry was her RA (i.e. Resident Assistant) when she was a student at the State University of New York at Albany (known in those days as SUNY Albany and considered by Barron’s as “the Paupers’ Princeton). Since then, she’s been like a big sister to me at the show. If I remember correctly, her and Rick Bosch announced their engagement at one of the first Off-Price Shows, so I think it’s pretty cool how closely tied their lives and families are to the Off-Price Show.

I would also like to thank Kathy Chikato from DLM Specialists who gives me great feedback on industry happenings, as well as good advice on marketing for the show.

There is also Polly Piraino from Off-Price Network who is very accessible to me for media activities and overall show support. She is very proud of her Linq brand for which her company is the exclusive Off-Price distributor.

Through my Top Ten pals, I had the great pleasure of meeting the Via Trading people over a nice dinner at the Hard Rock. Alan, Natania and their entourage are a lot of fun and are not intimidated by several offerings of lemon drops. Thanks again for an eventful evening and for the nice gifts. They were a big hit back home to say the least.

Let’s not forget our New Buyer Tour Leader David Abbate, whose pearls of wisdom were like manna from Heaven for this last show’s new crop – which included several new boutique owners, international buyers and new boutique owners from countries like Switzerland and Croatia. He was again a great resource for our students from the International Academy of Design & Technology (IADT-Vegas), many of whom represent tomorrow’s Off-Price buyers.

From the media, there is Max Padilla from WWD and Robert MacAlister from California Apparel News. Their interest and enthusiasm for Off-Price is greatly appreciated. Thanks for the excellent coverage in your pubs.

There are to be sure, many people I have forgotten, and so I will be returning to this blog. But I encourage anyone reading this to share personal experiences on the show from which they have profited on a personal and profitable level.

I invite everyone both old and new to check out our new Off-Price Retail Summit and Expo on May 6 and 7 at the South Point Hotel, Casino and Spa in Vegas. We are going back to our Off-Price roots by having the show and housing all in the same house, so buyers and vendors can enjoy each other’s company over refreshments, dinner or both after a busy day of bargaining and writing, without having to leave the building! Our industry day on May 5 includes golf, tennis and an evening cocktail reception prior to the show opening. We are also pleased to host the inaugural meeting of our Retail Advisory Board, which consists of the biggest names in off-price apparel retail. They are bringing their buying teams, too. This will be a great opportunity for last-second opportunities in the mid-year, and is the perfect venue for new buyers who often time feel overwhelmed by our larger Fashion Week shows.

More to come from me. Justin, Jason and Buddy thanks again for the opportunity to blog on Top Ten.

Retailers Finding New Opportunities with Off-Price Goods

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Mainstream apparel and accessories retailers traditionally have used off-price goods as promotional/sales items to pull customers into their stores and ultimately toward their full-price merchandise. While off-price goods are always attractive as sales items, savvy retailers today are finding new opportunities with off-price goods by cycling them into their regular inventory.
At the recent Off-Price Specialist Show in Las Vegas, one of the major exhibitors at the show said, “Whereas closeouts used to be used as loss leaders in stores, retailers are now using them for margin building. They’re not necessarily looking for the sale item; they want to make money.”
Retailers shopping the Show agree. One Florida retailer shopping for medical care uniforms said, “A good 60% of the merchandise we carry is off price. Off price is becoming more and more important to us.”
A Washington State retailer said, “At one time, the theory behind off price was finding the sale item—bargain basement goods. Now, with the quality of the merchandise you find, you can retail it and sustain a higher margin.”
The beauty of off price is that it has value in every economy—from weak to strong. The American consumer expects high quality goods at low prices, and retailers are forced to scramble to fill those needs. While the market is tough and competition fierce, the Off-Price Specialist Show provides retailers, both large and small, with sourcing opportunities for apparel, accessories and footwear to meet their customers’ expectations.
Attendance, particularly among new buyers, was up at the February Off-Price Show [create link] and order writing was brisk, further proof that retailers are turning to the Off-Price Show to find great bargains on quality apparel.

Bob Nordstrom