I talked with ActionWatch co-founder Cary Allington to catch up on some interesting apparel sales trends he is seeing so far this year in the ActionWatch retail panel.
The panel consists of 250 core retailers across the country.
Cary and I discussed sales trends during the January through May timeframe.
Here are a few quick highlights:
In apparel, the tank trend has accelerated so far this year, with big gains recorded.
Sales of knit crew shirts are also growing rapidly and together with tanks, this tops subcategory is growing faster than sales of printable Ts.
Meanwhile the sales growth of wovens, including flannels and basic button down wovens, has slowed significantly, Cary said.
The decline of the denim trend continues, while sales of non-denim styles like chinos and beach pants are up double digits. Denim sales are down double digits.
In boardshorts, the $60 to $65 price point showed double digit growth, while most of the other price point categories were flat or down.
Overall, some of the best performing categories in men’s in the first five months of the year were shorts and pants.
“As far as brands, the top three male-gender apparel brands are in a heated battle for market share with Billabong, Quiksilver and Volcom all showing nearly the same amounts of market share. However, many brands below the top three have been making strong sales and market share gains,” Cary said.
Junior’s as a category is showing growth after three years or so of major declines.
While Billabong remains the leader in the panel, Roxy is rebuilding market share and recording revenue gains on the panel.
And the new Quiksilver Girls line, while a very small portion of overall sales and still with less penetration than the big brands, is showing some of the largest gains in revenue growth and penetration, Cary said.
