A Taste of OffPrice Offers Deals in Struggling Market
Not even a heavy rainstorm on the final day of A Taste of Off Price could stop business for the trade show, which ran Oct. 3–5 in the lower-level Exhibit Hall in the California Market Center in Los Angeles.
Citi Trends Inc., Gabriel Brothers, Ross Store Inc.’s dd’s discounts, Burlington Coat Factory and buyers from other major discounters shopped the regional show, produced by Brookfield, Wis.–based OffPrice. The company also produces the sprawling 1,300-booth OffPrice Show, which runs biannually in Las Vegas.
More than 85 vendors exhibited at the Los Angeles show, on par with last year’s show, according to David Lapidos, executive vice president of OffPrice. The most recent run of A Taste of OffPrice was the second time Lapidos’ company produced a regional show at the CMC. The company also produces the A Taste of OffPrice show in New York.
A struggling economy has helped—and also hurt—the off-price market, which typically offers prices below wholesale, Lapidos said. “There is a tremendous desire and need for off-price merchandise. But there’s a tremendous shortage of off-price merchandise,” Lapidos said.
These market pressures have been building since the financial meltdown of 2008, and the pressures were one of the main topics of conversation at the show, along with deals and buyer traffic, according to Paul Maya of S. Maya & Sons Inc., which is based in downtown Los Angeles.
Retailers have been demanding more off-price clothes, but manufacturers have had less to sell in recent years as they kept inventories lean. With less domestic off-price merchandise available, jobbers have increasingly been searching for merchandise overseas, where they have to compete for goods with foreign off-price sellers. Demand for the decreasing supply of off-price merchandise has driven up prices, in some cases 35 percent, Maya said. “But if you look hard enough, you’ll get it,” he said.
Still, buyer traffic at A Taste of OffPrice was steady, Maya said. More than 90 percent of buyers were looking for Immediate merchandise. The rest were looking for Spring 2012 merchandise.
For Andy Shamsi, president of Cosmo Trading Inc. of New York, traffic was slow. “It wasn’t great,” he said. “But if I pick up one new account, it was good.” He said that he made a deal with a 20-door retailer at the show.
Shamsi forecast sweaters will be a popular category for the rest of 2011 and dresses will be an important category for 2012.
Big sellers at Bermo Enterprises, based in Schoolcraft, Mich., were tops bearing logos of professional and college sports teams, said Lou Fishback, who works in Bermo’s New York office. “We opened a few new accounts; people were looking for winter products,” Fishback said.
A Taste of OffPrice also debuted a new cash-and-carry section, where retailers could purchase jewelry or clothes and take them immediately to their store. The booth for Queen Eileen’s Inc. offered jewelry from the island of Bali, but Queen Eileen salesperson Elizabeth Gardner did not think show traffic was strong enough to return.
Lapidos, the show producer, said OffPrice has made tentative plans to do another Taste of OffPrice show at the CMC. The company’s next OffPrice show is scheduled Feb. 10–13 at the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas.
