TWO CHAINS SPORTING TEAM APPAREL SUCCESS

JOEL ELSON

PHOENIX -- Smitty's Super Valu here and Albertson's Florida division in St. Petersburg, Fla., have been quick to cash in on high-profit apparel sales related to the creation of two major league baseball expansion teams.

Though the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays aren't scheduled to take the field until 1998, both supermarket chains already have begun capitalizing on consumer interest in the teams. Smitty's, a 28-unit chain, introduced new Arizona Diamondbacks team apparel sections in its 1,200- to 1,400-square-foot Team Shops in March. The new merchandise, including Diamondbacks T-shirts, sweat shirts, caps and related accessories, helps establish Smitty's as a destination for local team sports apparel. "We continue to have sales increases with this merchandise," said Kim Espinoza, men's apparel buyer at Smitty's. Although Diamondbacks merchandise is producing the highest demand, sales of all licensed team sports apparel offered for the past 18 months are also doing well, said Espinoza. Smitty's displays licensed team apparel at the nonfood side of the store, adjacent to men's activewear. Signs identify the Team Shop department with logos of all the teams displayed. Most T-shirts retail from $14 to $24, while sweat shirts are priced from $16 to $50.

According to Espinoza, Smitty's does big business with all

types of local sports teams, including the Phoenix Suns. Its Phoenix Suns mix includes T-shirts, sweat shirts in silk screen prints and embroidered styles, shorts, sweat pants, pens, pencils and caps.

The mix is displayed on hangers in front of a black slat wall, with pens, pencils and team caps merchandised on shelves. When the Suns are in season, space devoted to Suns merchandise usually takes up 400 additional square feet of space at the front end, said Espinoza. Smitty's avoids lower-end licensed merchandise often sold at the mass merchants and discounters such as $9.99 T-shirts.

"We don't go after the lower-end market. We leave that to the Targets and Wal-Marts of the world," said Espinoza. "Although we could buy a million T-shirts at $3 and resell them for $9.99, we're not doing that."

Although Smitty's runs clearances on fleece and other seasonal clothing like tank tops at the end of a season, "we don't mark down team sports clothing," Espinoza said. Instead, it prefers to maintain a quality apparel image.

"My main emphasis is quality and offering our customers the best quality at the best price. They can come to us and pay $14 for a team T-shirt in the same brand that would cost $18 at a team shop or department store. At $14, it's a good value and actually worth a lot more," stressed the buyer.

The apparel comes in sizes from infant to adult, and extra, extra large. "It appeals to every age and economic group since fans come in all shapes and sizes," the Smitty's buyer noted. The merchandise is available to both men and women, though women account for most of the purchases, said the buyer.

"If you go to a Suns' game, there are just as many women there as men," she added. While Smitty's has carried assorted team sports clothing, including Arizona State University merchandise, it was not until professional teams like the Phoenix Suns started to gain popularity that the retailer began to vary the mix of team clothing. It also carries the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals and indoor football's Rattlers apparel. The chain frequently promotes the category by running full-page ads in the metropolitan dailies. "When the newspaper plans a sports special edition, we will advertise our licensed sports apparel since we believe in team sports. If and when we get professional hockey, we'll be big supporters, since we're big supporters of local professional teams," explained the buyer. Since sports apparel can be a very fast-paced business and is based on a teams' popularity and rankings, grocery stores with licensed sports clothing "should follow the teams and listen to the consumer. You must be in touch with what's selling on a weekly basis to avoid being overstocked, which could be very costly," Espinoza said. Retailers also need to stay abreast of a team's performance. "If a team is doing poorly you might have to take a deep markdown to get the customer interested again," she said. "You have to watch everything, from the media to whether the owners of the teams look like they will put a lot of money into it for new players."

Meanwhile, Albertson's Florida division, St. Petersburg, is selling Tampa Bay Devil Rays T-shirts and related merchandise. The mix, which is being carried in 24 Tampa and St. Petersburg stores, is producing 35% profit margins for the retailer, according to a local observer. Like Smitty's, Albertson's Florida division reportedly is enjoying brisk sales of its Tampa Bay Devil Rays team merchandise.

Commenting on the record, Keith Reed, drug sales manager, said "[Grocery stores] can cannibalize sales from other retailers in the market." The fully guaranteed, fully serviced program also contains accessories that Albertson's doesn't normally merchandise.

"Team sports accessories are so faddy and trendy and we aren't going to focus on little trinkets when I can sell a truckload of cat litter, a truckload of shampoo or a truckload of diapers," said Reed. "But [Tampa Bay Devil Rays] are so hot right now that the pennants, key chains and related merchandise are doing very well." Reed attributes the good sales to the creation of the expansion team. He said attempts to merchandise similar selections in Albertson's Orlando area, which doesn't have an expansion team, have not been as popular.

In the St. Petersburg area, team T-shirts and caps sell for $7.99. They are merchandised with other T-shirts selling for $7.99 to $10.99, and with smaller accessories displayed on power panels merchandised around the store. Though team sports apparel tends to be trendy, "if you get the right T-shirts, like our Texas division when Super Bowl hits, stores will sell thousands of dollars in T-shirts in six to seven weeks. T-shirts, in fact, are where this [sports team clothing] business is at," Reed said.