Plus-size clothing will no longer be shunted off into its own section at Meijer stores and will no longer cost more than smaller sized equivalents, the retailer announced Tuesday.
Clothing for larger women will be integrated into the women’s apparel department in all 230 of its stores by early next year, after a successful test run at 15 locations. Sizes small through 3X will share the same racks.
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The overhaul is designed to make all customers feel good about their shopping experiences and to free up space on the floor to offer more styles and fashions in both straight and extended sizes, according to Michelle Krick, Meijer’s women’s divisional merchandise manager.
“She wants the same trends and same fashions as other sizes. She doesn’t want to shop separately. She wants to shop together with her friends,” Krick said, explaining what the chain learned from feedback from plus-size customers.
Meijer appears to be a trailblazer, though one expert said the chain’s motivation might have more to do with balance sheets than body acceptance.
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The Grand Rapids-based retailer’s parity of placement comes with equal pricing, too. Plus-sized clothing tends to cost more, because it uses more fabric, requires different sewing patterns, has higher production costs, takes up more storage space and fits fewer pieces in shipping boxes, experts outlined.
“Whether you’re a 2 or a 14 or a 18, you should be paying the same price,” Krick said. “We’re taking a hit on that.”
She declined to say how Meijer would handle that cost adjustment other than saying the regional retailer is working with its vendors.
House brands Massini and Falls Creek make up 25% of the store’s misses and junior apparel.
Plus-size clothing is a $20.4-billion apparel segment, up from $17.4 billion in 2013, the market research firm NPD Group found. For teen girls, the jump is even greater: 34% are buying plus sizes, versus 19% in 2012.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 26.5% of women ages 20 and up are overweight, 40.4% are obese and 9.89% are extremely obese.
To Paco Underhill, author of “Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping,” Meijer is making these changes for capitalistic, not humanistic reasons.
“Part of what they’re trying to do is recognize we live more in a size 12 or 14 or 16 world than we do a size 4 (one). By taking plus-size women and pulling them out is making them feel as if the store is treating them differently,” he said. “In a hypermarket store, like Meijer, where you’re selling both clothing and groceries and furniture and electronics and liquor, they want to be very careful not to turn someone off, because if you do, their entire marketbasket is lost. If you are making that woman feel awkward about shopping for clothing, maybe she won’t buy her dishwasher soap and her wine there, also.”
He anticipates Meijer will raise prices to make up the difference lost on not charging more for plus-size clothing.
Regardless of the balance sheet, activist Amanda Levitt of fatbodypolitics.comapplauds the end of sequestration.
“Having a flat rate across the board makes it that consumers have the same access to clothes. It also changes the social experience of buying clothes. You go in and don’t have to go some dark, scary corner for the plus-size section. It can make you feel like you’re not being othered and dehumanized,” said the 31-year-old Wayne State University PhD student, who lives in Detroit’s New Center area. “If I’m looking for those clothes, I have to go to a specialty store, like Lane Bryant… Going shopping with someone a different size than I am is nonexistant unless they want to make a separate stop with me. Especially for younger women, it’s a completely different experience.”
[Source:-Detrroi Free Press]
