Charming Shoppes, the owner of Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug and Catherines Plus Size is closing about 240 of its stores across its chains, representing about 12% of its overall store count. Not a big surprise for a chain that lost $30 million during its most recent quarter.
But there are other aspects to this that make it surprising. For one thing, the bulk of the stores Charming Shoppes will close are in its lower-priced Fashion Bug chain, as well as all of its Catherines stores operating in outlet centers. With a consumer that is still price sensitive, this seems like an interesting move.
Additionally, all of Charming Shoppes concepts are geared toward plus-sized women. With the never-ending dialogue about the country's obesity problem, you would think this retail sector should thrive.
Plus, there really isn't a whole lot of national specialty competition out there. We can only think of Avenue as being the main player on that front, but of course, department stores and discounters probably play in that sector as well.
So what has Charming Shoppes done wrong? Over expansion, a bad assortment? And how will this impact retail real estate landlords?
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