Off-Price Specialist Show
by Christina Lee on September 30th, 2008
Tourists may hope that what happens in Vegas actually stays in Vegas. But exhibitors showcasing at the city’s biannual Fashion Week pray that their merchandise travels a bit farther than the famous city strip.
And for Don Browne, the statement that clothing can make is a little beyond personal. As marketing director and publisher of the Off-Price Specialist Show – from August 23 to 26 – he believes that consumers are not just buying into trends. He saw them buying more into off-price, marked 20 to 70 percent below the original manufacturer’s wholesale price.
“The off-price market is continuing to grow, not in spite of the economy, but because of it,” he said in a phone interview.
Off-Price offered tours, pre-show guidebooks, and exhibit directories to over 10,000 buyers navigating through nearly 450 vendors’ worth of off-price apparel – a great expansion from the few hotel rooms the show occupied 13 years ago. Much like the international MAGIC fashion tradeshow, the buyers at the Sands and Expo Convention Center flocked most toward accessories and handbags: the bigger and bolder, the better.
This lone Fashion Week source of off-price merchandise may have attracted less than ten percent of its apparel buyers, but the numbers of people attending and vendors showcasing are still consistent, Browne said. The prices also remain low. Capico Accessories, a San Francisco-based retailer, offered to buyers a pair of $300 Dior sunglasses for $75 – worthy bait of brand-hungry shoppers hunting in a dire economy.
“Everyone’s looking for that one great item that’s going to make their season and develop a reputation for their business. We are their New Deal. We are that solution,” Browne said.
The show also continued to emphasize that off-price is not always synonymous with low quality. As they first did in February 2007, merchandising students of the International Academy of Design and Tech, Las Vegas campus, became shoppers dashing to put together a trendy ensemble – for mannequins and for Browne, an advisory board member at the school.
The “Look for Less”-esque hunt is a part of the company’s T.O.P.S. (The Off-Price Show), or “This is Off-Price” mantra, which the company bestowed upon itself last year to prove that trendy ensembles exist at below-wholesale prices. True to its mission, Browne watched buyers leave the show with the same products featured on the mannequins.
“People have this perception of off-price, and then they see T.O.P.S. and think it’s a different show,” Browne said. “It established that we’re not just the promotional stuff, or the ill-fits. It demonstrates now that we have something for everyone.”
February 2009’s Off-Price Specialist Show will be held in the Venetian ballrooms. There, while also a shuttle bus stop for MAGIC buyers travelling to the Las Vegas Convention Center, Browne hopes to catch the eyes of even more buyers not yet exposed to the off-price option of Fashion Week.
“We’re right here,” he said. “You don’t have to go much farther.”
We were just in Vegas at the Magic Show and did not find out about this show until after the fact. Please send me information on your upcoming shows. Thanks
barbara birdsong
February 23rd, 2009
at 10:46 am
Please send information on your next shows. We are located in Milwaukee, WI which is close to Chicago, IL in case you are in that area at any time. Will be in Vegas for August Magic Show? If so, where will this show be held?
barbara birdsong
February 23rd, 2009
at 10:56 am