"Teen retailers didn't just experiment with concept stores," Nicholas Casey, "they built entire strategies around them, chasing trends from skater-themed shops and surf-shops to dark boutiques modeled
after nightclubs." But the recession is prompting a harsh reappraisal of slicing the market into dozens of niches, he reports.
Analysts say there are too many similar concepts -- be it
surfer, skater or preppy -- fighting over too few customers. Pacific Sunwear of California has shuttered two separate concept-store brands in the past 18 months. Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle
Outfitters both invested heavily in concept stores aimed at slices of the young adult market. None performed well and are now siphoning resources from their parents.
Yesterday,
Aéropostale said it would take $3 million in charges to earnings to close its Jimmy'Z concept stores. CEO Julian Geiger says that the 11 stores have "migrated from one concept to the next" over
time. But Aéropostale this week also disclosed it's introducing P.S. from Aéropostale, a format Geiger says targets the "younger kid who desperately tried to fit in our sizes but was
ultimately too small."
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