Retail Strategies For Moving Seasonal Apparel

One of biggest mistakes retail apparel business owners make is allowing out-of-season clothes and accessories to take up valuable real estate in their store. There comes a time when shoppers are no longer actively looking to purchase certain types of clothes, and keeping these items in your store is a waste of space and ultimately a waste of money. This is why it's important for retail apparel stores to move seasonal apparel in a timely manner. But when should you begin to move seasonal apparel? And how do you encourage shoppers to buy it? To learn the answers to these questions and more, keep reading.

Let's first talk about winter clothing, as this oftentimes gets left behind in retail apparel stores far longer than it should. Scarfs, heavy jackets, sweaters and hoodies are just a few of examples of 'winter clothing.' The problem with allowing these items to remain in you store is that customers no longer want them after a certain time of year. Typically, a few weeks before spring should be the cutoff period for winter clothes. This doesn't mean you should stop selling them, but you should take a different approach to marketing them.

Spring 2014, as you may already know, falls on March 20th; therefore, you can expect shoppers to stop paying full price for winter clothes around the first week of March.

Retail apparel store owners can move their seasonal products by marking them down to clearance. Chances are you've seen or purchased a marked-down garment that's out of season before. This is a highly effective marketing strategy that's a win-win scenario for both the store and its customers. The store benefits from being able to move out-of-season product while generating sales revenue, and customers benefit from receiving exceptional deals.

The lower you mark down your winter apparel items, the faster they will sell. Even if shoppers aren't looking for these items, the rock-bottom low prices may seem too enticing for them to pass up. Ideally, you should mark down out-of-season clothes just enough so you are able to turn a profit. Going any further could result in you losing money on the transactions.

Of course, spring/summer clothes works in a similar manner; the best time to start marking it down is a couple weeks before fall, which is September 01 next year.