Friday, March 27, 2009

The consumer is coming back

Sales for the first quarter are significantly above last year and our customer count continues to expand as more and more people turn to the off price industry to profit in this down economy. We have seen an increase in traffic at both the ASD show and the Off Price show as well as our walk in traffic. Many of our customers are reporting higher sales figures and while no one is telling us that business is great, we are hearing that business is improving and the consumer is returning to purchase new apparel items for the spring season. The warmer weather during the day has driven tee shirt sales and the cooler weather in the early morning and late evening continues to drive sales in fleece products. The demand remains strong for value items and in particular any liquidation item or reduced price item. Many of our customers are using our closeout items to increase margins by mixing in some of the lower cost products and thereby reducing the average cost in the overall mix. This trend has been growing all month and we are constantly looking to find additional items that we can mark down to improve our customers returns. The closeouts we have are constantly updated as items sell out and new items are added to the mix. Look for the white tank tops Style 2200G and the white shooter shirts Style 2700G to be sold out in the not to distant future. You can view these styles by clicking on the style number links. On the Internet front we have improved our servers and the speed on the site seems to improved dramatically. We will be upgrading our software in the month of April and I am sure we will have some issues but overall we think the new software will help our staff to able to operate with greater ease and functionality. We hope the new software will bring a much needed improvement to customers and sales staff while they try to sort through our ever growing product mix. Look to see a greater availability in children's products in April and hopefully a larger availability in adult white tee shirts. New inventory in white tee shirts will be available by April 1st.