• Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, September 23, 2009 10:36 AM

Retailers to teens have always had to simultaneously appeal to the actual consumers of their products and to the keepers of the exchequer quaintly known as parents. In flush times, they counted on the wiles of the former to loosen the purse strings of the latter. But in these tight times, Elizabeth Holmes reports, teen-clothing retailers are focusing on their core clientele: moms.

Aeropostale is designing stores with more seats and wider aisles to accommodate parents with strollers, and staffers are exhorted to "TTM," or target the mom. Buckle is offering personal-shopping appointments outside of normal store hours. Old Navy is stressing value as much as glamour. Other ideas: brightening the lighting, adding cash registers to the middle of the store and turning down what everyone's dad used to call the "infernal noise that passes for music nowadays."

"Parents are controlling more of the dollars being spent," says Roxanne Meyer, a retail analyst with UBS Investment Research. "Any retailer that is doing a good job at drawing parents in is going to gain share."

Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal »