
Retailers Ask: Where Did Teenagers Go? - mathattack
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/business/retailers-ask-where-did-teenagers-go.html
======
ja27
_“You can buy a plaid shirt at Abercrombie that’s like $70,” said Daniela
Donayre, 17, standing in a Topshop in Manhattan. “Or I can go to Forever 21
and buy the same shirt for $20.”_

Or they can go to a thrift shop and get one for $2. That's what my daughter
and half her friends do. It's even worse after that Macklemore song.

~~~
ck2
Ah see this wasn't in the article, glad to read thrift stores are cool again.

~~~
BlackDeath3
People are so damn silly.

"Hey, celebrities are buying overpriced things. Let's buy overpriced things
and make fun of those who bought the same thing for less!"

...

"Hey, a musician sang a song about getting stuff cheap at the thrift store.
Let's get all our stuff at the thrift store now! It's the same stuff, for
cheaper!"

~~~
untog
This just in: people are influenced by prominent celebrities and like to fit
in.

~~~
BlackDeath3
I didn't say that it was surprising, I said that it was silly. Why be so
worried about fitting in, especially in such superficial and arbitrary ways?

~~~
untog
_Why be so worried about fitting in_

Because we are (largely) social animals and being accepted by a group is a
powerful motivator (for most).

~~~
BlackDeath3
It just doesn't make any sense. And people often pay such high costs in the
pursuit of acceptance that I wish that more people would just stop, think
about what they're doing, and realize how ridiculous it is. They don't need to
worry so much about it. They don't need to spend so much time thinking about
it.

It just seems like you would have so much more time and energy to spend on
other things when you stop thinking like an animal.

~~~
JonnieCache
The thing that motivates people to buy expensive clothes is _exactly the same_
as the thing that's motivating you to write these comments.

People don't really want to fit in with others, they want to fit in with
themselves. For some people that involves being the kind of person that buys
expensive clothes. For you, that involves being the kind of person that
doesn't buy expensive clothes. There is no difference, except that your thing
is not externally visible, so you have to tell us about it. And you get to
keep all that disposable income I guess.

You're also avoiding the identity equivalent of running your whole business on
a 3rd party API, which is what people who base themselves on brands are doing.
So you're probably ahead. But not really any different.

~~~
BlackDeath3
I think that you may have missed my point. This isn't about buying expensive
clothes, or being _one of those people_ who doesn't buy expensive clothes. I'm
not making my decision _in order to fit in_. I try not to worry about it,
because I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't make much sense to worry
about it.

~~~
jff
If you weren't worried about it, you wouldn't be posting about it so much.

~~~
BlackDeath3
I'm putting effort into trying to get people to think about things in a
different way. That's what I'm "worried" about. If by "it" you mean buying
expensive clothes, I think that you've missed the point.

Then again, given your posts, it seems that you make a habit of missing the
point. I suppose I'll move on.

------
mortov
Where did they go ? Perhaps if retailers had been less keen to install The
Mosquito
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito))
to shoo them away, they may have had more customers.

Sounds like retailers have discovered the downside to the constant anti-
teenager policies of malls and shops treating them as hostile aliens to be
driven off and sometimes even criminalized for being so "anti-social" as to
try and go out shopping by themselves whilst under 21.

No wonder they buy online or just decide to play online games instead of going
out. At least there they are not going to be harassed by mall cops or arrested
by real cops and criminalized.

~~~
marquis
Also, jobs? When I was growing up teenagers were the mainstay of the
supermarket bag&checkout for example - now I see older people having these
jobs. Which probably means there isn't much lower to go in terms of income.

------
yardie
You chased them away and now you're shocked they aren't in your store?

Check the Apple Store. They have ~10 products that change once a year. The
former VP was smart enough to know that todays' kids are tomorrows' customers.
They might not buy anything on the first or fourth visit but they'll
eventually buy something.

------
protonfish
How is it a surprise that with high unemployment and low wages retail markets
are suffering? Corporations' focus on short-term profits have predictable
consequences.

------
chiph
I'm a long way from shopping at one of the stores mentioned, but when I walk
past them at the mall, what strikes me is how expensive they look. Not just
the clothes, but the store itself. Expensive locations, expensive build-out,
expensive fixtures. Lots of employees.

I don't expect them to look like a discount merchanter (naked fluorescent
bulbs, racks from last century), but there's something to be said about cheap
chic. Which Forever21 (a favorite of the nieces) and H&M seem to get.

~~~
bluedino
The build-out costs are probably offset by how low mall rent is these days.
You could take the same idea when it comes to food, look at how many flat
screen televisions are inside a B-dubs or how much more it probably costs to
built a Chipotle or Panera than it does a Subway. No wonder a meal at the
previous two costs $10+, and Chipotle is considering _raising_ prices because
sales are so high. But the million dollars it costs to build the restaurant
over 5 years is probably a drop in the bucket compared to food and employee
costs.

------
minikites
"Municipalities crafted anti-loitering laws and curfews to keep young people
from congregating alone. New neighborhoods had fewer public spaces. Crime
rates plummeted, but moral panic soared."

[http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/12/ap_thompson-2/](http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/12/ap_thompson-2/)

~~~
josefresco
While this is an important and valid general concern, the article was
specifically talking about only a few teen brands that up until very recently
were doing quite well.

I don't see any general trend or problem with teen purchasing, only a handful
of dinosaurs about to be left behind by newer more agile competitors.

That and it's a new game console year which probably puts dent on expendable
teenage income.

------
jonnathanson
These days, B&M retail stores that hope to survive need to rely on creative
layouts, exciting experiences, or extreme price/value ratios.

A lot of folks are mentioning the Apple stores, which I'd certainly describe
as creative and exciting. The article references H&M, which is more of a
price/value play. Uniqlo probably touches on all of these things, though from
anecdotal observation, it tends to skew a little older than teenagers. But
have you ever been inside a Uniqlo that wasn't as packed and chaotic as a
Disneyland ride? Say what you will about the shopping experience, but it's a
pretty successful one. You wait in line for about 2 hours…but that's because
_there 's an enormous line_ in the first place.

------
justincormack
The successful fashion retailers are doing fast iteration, like Zara as shown
in this rather good article [1] - sounds like many are just getting complacent
with their brand.

"That means that if Inditex stores in London, Tokyo and São Paulo all have
customers responding enthusiastically to, let’s say, sequined cranberry-
colored hot pants, Inditex can deliver more of these, or a variation on hot
pants, sequins or that cranberry color, to stores within three weeks. The
company tries to keep the stock fresh; one promise its stores make is that you
will always be buying something nearly unique. Merchandise moves incredibly
quickly, even by fast-fashion standards. All those thousands of Inditex stores
receive deliveries of new clothes twice a week."

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-
int...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-into-the-
worlds-largest-fashion-retailer.html?pagewanted=all)

------
resemc
Ludicrous.

Where did the teenagers go? Away from your retail store where they're not
wanted (unless they're working minimum wage in your employ).

For the past 10 or so years I've heard nothing but stories about troublesome
teenagers in stores/malls, shoplifting flash mobs made of 'urban yoots', etc.
They've gone so far as to make electronic buzzers that only the young can hear
and they use them to drive the kids away
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito)).

When you've spent the better part of a decade labeling teens with anti-social
labels and actively driving them away with noise maybe you shouldn't ask why
all the teens left (and took their money with them).

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thecosas
Most important two paragraphs in this article:

>> “Probably the most important thing a teenage boy has is his smartphone,”
said Richard Jaffe, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. “Second, is probably his
sneakers. Third, maybe, we get to his jeans.”

>> What may trump all of those, Mr. Jaffe said, are gaming systems, especially
over the last few months, because Xbox and PlayStation both released new game
consoles in 2013. That may have taken a bite out of what teenagers had to
spend on clothes.

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mrjatx
Clothing seems far less about pimping your brand and more about wearing good
looking, well-fit items nowadays. It's great. When I was in high school around
2000 I was a skinny kid. I couldn't find ANYTHING that fit well except for
Diesel. Everything else was sized via the "fat American" standard where a
small would be a medium nowadays. Now there are tons of places to get well fit
affordable stuff. Uniqlo, AA, H&M, Forever21, etc.

~~~
bluedino
On the other hand, I gained 50lbs from when I was a 'skinny kid' in high
school and nothing at Abercrombie even fits.

~~~
cliveowen
Abercrombie is for 19-21 years, so it doesn't even matter in the long run.

~~~
bluedino
I see too many guys in their late 30's and early 40's wearing it these days,
so I figured it was long past 'cool'.

------
sakunthala
The article briefly mentions it, but I think the comments here are
underestimating how much teenagers like to shop online. The growth of Nasty
Gal may be one example of this.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/technology/nasty-gal-an-
on...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/technology/nasty-gal-an-online-start-
up-is-a-fast-growing-retailer.html?_r=0)

------
ck2
Was hoping to read that maybe thrift stores are coming back.

Guess they are not "cool" again yet.

~~~
JonnieCache
There was recently a commercially produced pop song about thrift stores in the
charts, so you can rest assured that they've been cool again for at least ten
years.

~~~
antiterra
I'd argue that it was independently produced, and 'cool' varies by the crowds
you grow up in and around. Commercial music is still considered cool by a very
large swath of youth. Even when it wasn't, the industry has little problem
absorbing and subverting the indies.

~~~
JonnieCache
I'm not saying they're no longer cool, but the fact that some record company
executives put millions of dollars behind the track in this risk-averse
entertainment/identity industry means thrift stores have probably passed or
are about to pass their peak coolness for this cycle. The same likely applies
to Macklemore themselves, they didn't write those lyrics with blood and tears,
they wrote them to sell.

"They" watch what the _really_ cool kids are doing, or at least the coolest
kids they can find. When they've been consistently doing a particular thing
for almost a decade, with the thing filtering down through the social
hierarchy until almost-uncool people are doing it, that's the prime time to
safely monetize the shit out of that thing for about 3 years until even your
dad wouldn't be caught dead doing it.

Macklemore/ADA are kinda late to the party, "vintage" clothing stores have
been milking that particular cash cow dry for a while now. Filtering down...

It's a process that sounds familiar to many people here, I'm sure.

~~~
sliverstorm
"Some record company executives"? _Thrift Shop_ was produced under the label
_Macklemore LLC_ , i.e. bankrolled by Macklemore himself. That was one of the
reasons it was an interesting track. An indy label hitting the #1 spot on the
charts.

~~~
JonnieCache
It was distributed by ADA. You think they shipped thousands of promo
CDs/mailouts to radio stations and record stores across the world all on their
own? These artist-run labels are usually just shell companies.

But yes, this track is maybe not the best example for the point I'm making.
Just replace "record companies spending millions of dollars" with "ADA
spending some other very large amount of money and macklemore spending
hundreds of man hours" and the point is the same.

~~~
w1ntermute
> It was distributed by ADA. You think they shipped thousands of promo
> CDs/mailouts to radio stations and record stores across the world all on
> their own?

The relationship between Macklemore and the ADA is fundamentally different
from the traditional relationship between an artist and a record label, where
the record label loans the artist money up front and takes care of all the
promotional efforts in return for a majority share of the revenue from album
sales. The ADA takes payment upfront - there is no "investment" going on. This
is why Macklemore was able to take the lion's share of the profits from his
album sales.

In fact, Macklemore addresses this very point in one of his songs on _The
Heist_ : [http://rapgenius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-jimmy-
iovine-...](http://rapgenius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-jimmy-iovine-
lyrics)

> But yes, this track is maybe not the best example for the point I'm making.

No, it's actually the worst possible example you could have picked.

> Just replace "record companies spending millions of dollars" with "ADA
> spending some other very large amount of money and macklemore spending
> hundreds of man hours" and the point is the same.

No, it's not the same. It's just about as different as it gets when it comes
to the music industry.

