For Part II of our series on successful retailing of apparel in pop culture stores, ICv2 talked with Warp II of Edmonton, Alberta (for Part I, which featured Midtown Comics in New York City see 'Merchandising Apparel -- A Retailer Success Story'). With around 1200 square feet of retail space, Warp II is the smaller store in a two-store chain. Since its product mix includes a full line of comics and lots of games, Warp II doesn't have much space to devote to apparel. The solution to the space problem is a wall-mounted series of garment hangers that customers can leaf through to find what they want. Security is not a problem since the racks are visible from the checkout counter. Although apparel only amounts to 5-10% of the store's total sales, it more than pays its way.
Stock
Warp II stocks about 20-30 different t-shirt designs in as many sizes as are offered. When available, small and medium sizes do sell to women and children, an effect that is especially true for anime designs. The store's best-selling classic design is a Spider-Man shirt, while the best sellers among newer designs include Jhonen Vasquez's Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Squee (see 'Johnny the Homicidal Space Invader'). Unlike bigger stores for whom ordering directly from manufacturers makes sense, Warp II orders almost all its shirts through Diamond. Inventory control is very important since Warp II generally only stocks a couple of extras shirts per design, and it's important for them to reorder replacement shirts if the design's sales velocity warrants it.
Display
The key to selling apparel in a small store is effective use of wall space for display. Since Warp II doesn't have the space to carry all the potential moneymaking apparel available, the manager concentrates the store's efforts on t-shirts, the best selling apparel category in pop culture stores, rather than trying to carry caps, ties, and sweatshirts. Warp II's experience demonstrates that even a smaller store can make apparel an important contributor by proceeding in a modest and orderly fashion that takes advantage of the opportunities provided by a large distributor like Diamond.
