We expect to see very deep discounts from children’s clothing retailers earlier than normal this year, and with more inventory remaining.
Typically, we wouldn’t see 70% off deals until February, and 80% off until March. But, we’re already seeing some sales up to 70% off.
Retailers won’t want to be the ones stuck holding the inventory, so they will do all they can to entice us to spend with them. Many people take advantage of End of Season sales, and with today’s economy, it’s expected people will spend less overall. So, the sooner the retailers can get your buck, the better.
We saw unprecedented sales, promotions, and free shipping offers leading up to Christmas. Some retailers were more aggressive than others and are now better balanced with their remaining inventory — even though they likely didn’t profit from their sales as much as in previous years.
Some Retailers we think are leading the game are:
- Hanna Andersson
- Gymboree
- Lands End (while the discounts are only 35%, they have had a lot of promotions this year and should be well ahead of their position in previous years)
- Justice and Limited Too (each have had huge sale opportunities – they should be sitting pretty good on ‘limited’ remaining inventory if they didn’t overproduce)
- Naartjie
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Some Retailers we think have could have high levels of remaining inventory, and where you may find very, very deep discounts in the near future (if you’re patient):
- Baby Gap, Gap Kids, Old Navy
- 77 Kids
- Janie and Jack
- Crazy8
- Abercrombie Kids
- LL Bean
- Boden (possibly quicker reductions than previous years)
- Children’s Place
- Garnet Hill
- crewcuts
- Jusice and Limited Too (yes, we repeated them here. They’ve done a great job with sales as stand alone stores, but they need to unload a lot of inventory as they transition to one — watch in your area for store closings).
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We encourage you to support your local boutiques.
Additionally, your local boutiques are possibly suffering in this economy. With the inherent inability to grab consumer attention, like the big retailers, and the inability to offer huge promotions on huge amounts of inventory, they may have very high levels of unplanned remaining inventory. Watch your boutiques close for earlier sales at deeper discounts than you’ve seen in previous years.
These small businesses support the many, many designer children’s clothing manufacturers that we love so much. Let’s all help them stay in business! Consider spending a portion of your end-of-season shopping budget for children’s clothing at your local boutique! Afterall, the designs and quality usually far exceed the major retailers, so you’ll be getting a lot of value for your money.
It will be interesting to see how the sales play out this year. It’s more difficult to predict than previous years, but one thing we quite sure of — deep, deep discounts will be available.
We’ll keep you posted!