Shirt Delivery Lag Sends Stores to New Resources
Fairchild News ServiceE
Retailers are using a greater number of resources than ever before to satisfy their fall and holiday dress shirt require- ments.
In a survey of six major cities, retailers indicated that this is one way they are coping with lagging dress shirt deliveries. Industry-wide, dress shirt deliveries for fall and holiday generally are slightly off- schedule (DNR, Aug. 12, p. 1). In certain cases, there is a lag of two to three weeks.
Retailers weren't entirely in agreement on whether the delivery lag for fall and holiday was any worse than it has been in the past two or three seasons. But there were few in the survey who did not indi- cate some disatisfaction with deliveries as they now stand.
To circumvent growing deliveries prob- lems retailers are doing one or a combi- nation of several things:
• Placing orders among more makers than usual.
•
Turning more to small, in-stock houses to satisfy certain requirements.
Using more imports
Putting more pressure directly on manufacturers.
• Starting to commit themselves earlier than usual.
Where retailers' complaints are loud and prolonged, it seems that most of their criticism is directed at brand name dress
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er who said,-“We have the prob- em (late dress shirt deliveries) more and more, and so more and more we are turning to smaller resources. It means we're spread- ing ourselves thin, but we're get- ting the goods we need.”
Bob Sobel, vice-president and merchandise manager at Rosen- blum's, ટી Cleveland specialty store, said "delivery on branded Jines is running very late. For holiday, we're supplementing with unbranded lincs. Small firms are doing a good job in providing us with merchandise."
shirt makers. But high fashion makers, particularly designer label houses, also are at the butt end of some complaints.
For their part, certain retailers are willing to accept the fact they're partly to blame because they don't commit them- selves far enough in advance. They con- cede off-the-record usually that they wait and see what customer demand over- the-counter will be before they commit themselves to new high-fashion looks and colorations. They admit that this reluct- ance on their part is more of a problem than it used to be because the whole dress. shirt business is much more of a high Fashion operation.
Other retailers feel that the piece goods deliveries gap from mill to manufacturer is a major culprit. A few retailers also charge that dress shirt manufacturers in certain instances are not equipped to deal · with the fast changing pace of today's fashion oriented dress shirt business.
A Charlotte, N. C., retailer, for ex- ample, noted, "I think that the major problem is at the mill level, plus the fart that toda dress shirt styles are changit; so fast."
Another Charlotte retailer, however, was more assertive: "If we have to, we can find smaller manufacturers who are willing and able to meet demand.” His view was shared by a Philadelphia retail-
William Hofner, merchandise manager, at Halle Bros. depart- ment store in Cleveland, noted also that "it's the branded lines that are falling behind. We were in pretty good shape for back- o-school selling, but for holiday we're doing more with private label goods and imports."
Don Abrams, president, Wern- er-Hilton, Inc., of St. Louis, said "Independent retailers must rely on a limited number of manu- facturers who just don't seem capable of handling the huge de- mands.
"We haven't received word from manufacturers, but deliv- eries already are late.
Another St. Louis retailer, Kenny Kent, owner of Joe's Clothes noted "even the smaller manufacturers seem to be slow- er on delivries this season. It's a constant headache trying to keep hot items in stock."
Sol Carmel, a vice-president of Baskin's of Chicago, said that his firm, always ordered from several sources, so if one didn't deliver they would be covered by shipments from another.
Chicago retailers, however, generally agreed that shipments SO far for back-in-school and fall were running pretty well on schedule. “We've received 90 per cent of our back-to-school dress
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shirts with, no problems, said Patrick Durkin, president of Durkin & Durkin in suburban Waukegan, Ill. Spokesmen at both Goldblatt's and Carson Pirie Scott also said that they've en- countred no big problems so far. Furnishings buyers for several major department and specialty stores in the Eoston area agreed that deliveries particularly.
from designer label makers were running anywhere from one 10 three weeks behind schedule.
"It's an uncommon situation and if it continues we may have to operate a full season ahead the way clothing departments
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do," said a buyer for a Boston retail operation.
A spokesman for another Boston store said that where deliveries are late, the store has been asking for a status report from the inanufacturer to "let us know just where we stand on deliveries."