Specialist
Former VP at Carter's Inc
Agenda
- Operating environment and digitalisation trends in childrenswear
- Competitive landscape and respective strategies – Carter's, Children’s Place, Target and Amazon
- H2 2019 outlook, private label strategies and potential M&A
Questions
1.
What’s your updated perspective on the operating environment for the children’s apparel sector, what trends or drivers are you noticing of late? Specifically, how is the landscape evolving post Gymboree?
2.
Which brands and retailers are leading the childrenswear market today – what are your thoughts on market share dynamics, points of differentiation and relative positionings? How would you segment by relative age groups within the category?
3.
I believe it was Gap who recently purchased the Janie and Jack line from Gymboree, and I think the plan was to spin it off with Old Navy. What is your take on this decision and do you think there’s overlap for Old Navy, moving forward? How would you think about the synergies between that new line and Old Navy’s existing offering?
4.
Similarly, do you have any other thoughts when thinking about Gymboree’s assets? I believe it was Children’s Place who decided to buy the brand and IP?
5.
You mentioned the Cat & Jack line from Target, how would you think about private label penetration in this broader category and across private label brands, who would you think is gaining more share here?
6.
In the context of the boutique brands and thinking about share dynamics across the category, do you think all players will lose share respectively as the emerging brands continue to gain?
7.
How do you expect existing brick-and-mortar presences for Children’s Place and Carter’s to change moving forward? Do you think there’ll be an uptick in any potential store closures for either company, maybe touching on geographies as well?
8.
When thinking about the respective locations for Children’s Place and Carter’s stores, are we looking at more of type A and B facilities, or how would you think about the actual strip malls that these stores are in?
9.
When thinking about Children’s Place and Carter’s, what are your thoughts in terms of how close they are to store saturation? Moving forward, do you think it will be difficult for either of these retailers to find an area to open new stores? When looking at the actual footprint of the store, do you think we’ll see a potential scale down in size? How might this factor in terms of inventory carried within each store?
10.
When thinking about promotions moving forward, how big of an impact have you seen this having on same-store sales – looking at this across retailers? You mentioned when looking at SKU rationalisation efforts and potential liquidating and such, is the Toys “R” Us situation behind us as well, in terms of inventory, or do you think it is still impacting the different retailers? How would you think about that?
11.
When looking at pricing across the players, who do you think has been experiencing more promos or discounting across the board? Is anyone having to do more than any of the other players?
12.
When looking at stores such as Target, Walmart and department stores, as non-pure play children’s apparel offerings, what’s really driving the consumer to these? Looking at foot traffic in this regard, how would you think about choices and how that’s impacting these consumers? Is the customer an omnichannel shopper, or how would you think about the overlap between these offerings from this perspective and where she’s going to make her purchases?
13.
When thinking about e-commerce strategies across the retailers and if there’s any variance by age range, if we’re looking at the 0-24 months vs toddler vs big sizes, how would you notice any trends or patterns in terms of reorders and doing it in different colours or in different product types? What items are more likely purchased online?
14.
When thinking about returns and also the buy-online-and-ship-to-store model, do you have any other thoughts as it relates to the cost or logistics for these offerings moving forward? When thinking about these online platforms for Carter’s or Children’s Place, is there room still to improve any technological advancements, how might this evolve moving forward?
15.
Do you have any thoughts about what’s happening right now with China and tariffs and the impact on Carter’s and Children’s Place, and the ability to really pass this through on price increases as well? Is there anything we should be paying attention to when looking at sourcing from China, factories and so forth?
16.
Are you aware of any potential international opportunities for Children’s Place or any of the other brands? I think Children’s Place was on Tmall and then switched to Semir as well, in 2018?
17.
Beyond the Gymboree assets we discussed, do you have any other thoughts when it comes to recent or potential M&A scenarios within the space? Alternatively, do you have any key takeaways to highlight for us?
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