THE BIG SQUEEZE
HUFFINGTON
08.18.13
out from the community.
“It’s a money loser, for sure,” he
told the Calgary Herald. “I understand their plight, but it’s tough.”
KELLEN FUJIMOTO PHOTOGRAPHY/COURTESY OF CORDELIA STORM
THE PLIGHT OF THE
PLUS-SIZE SHOPPER
Wilson might just as well have been
speaking for much of the body-conscious retail marketing world.
A majority of plus-size women
complain that they have trouble
finding desirable clothing styles
and difficulty locating apparel of
high quality, according to a 2012
report from the research and consulting firm The NPD Group.
The reason for this comes down
to simple dollars. Retailers are
engaging in systematically optimizing the physical space within
their stores, seeking to squeeze the
most revenue out of every limited
square inch. The most profitable
products get the prime space and
promotion. Plus-sizes tend to get
squeezed into the margins, if at all.
“Stores don’t stretch,” said
Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at The NPD Group. “They’re
not like a balloon. There is finite
space and they’ve maximized it
over the past decade.”
That said, some apparel retailers
have been carving out extra space
for plus-size shoppers. Four years
ago, the trendy teen retailer Forever 21 released its own plus-size
line, w+. Fast-fashion mammoth
H&M followed suit in 2012 with its
own similarly-named line, H&M+.
The yoga and athletic-wear
realm has seen steady movement
toward the plus-size crowd. Consumers are expected to spend
about $332 million on athletic
wear sold at plus-size women’s
clothing stores this year, according to an estimate from market research firm IBISWorld — a figure
that doesn’t capture purchases
made in stores that also sell non
plus-size items.
Cordelia
Storm, a
coach at a
nonprofit
parkour gym,
launched a
petition on
Change.org
last year,
pressuring
Lululemon to
offer plussize options.