L.A. Lures Retail Buying Offices

In an effort to stay on their fashion toes, a number of department stores and retail chains are opening up their own buying offices in the fashion district of Los Angeles.

Windsor Fashions, a teen specialty retailer, opened its 3,800-square-foot showroom last week in the California Mart, and Arden B., the women’s contemporary division of Foothill Ranch, Calif.-based Wet Seal Inc., will open a 1,500-square-foot showroom at the Cooper Building later this month.

Los Angeles’ emergence as a premier fashion hub for both up-and-coming and fashion-forward designers is enticing retail merchants to view the West Coast as their new apparel resource.

“Los Angeles is an important market and having a local presence allows these retailers to be the first to access trends and clothing,” said John Golisch, retail partner at Arthur Andersen LLP. “And, if your competitors are doing it, you need to be too.”

The trend is also a win-win for the city’s downtown showrooms that are looking for new ways to expand their tenant mix as domestic and international economic pressures hammer away at Los Angeles County’s manufacturing industry. In the last year, the area’s apparel and manufacturing job base decreased by 3.1 percent, according to Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

“We’re seeking out more [buying offices] and have two more in the works,” said Karen Mamont, marketing and public relations for the California Mart.

Mamont said the deals should be finalized in the last quarter of the year but declined to name the retailers. However, she did note that one is a contemporary chain and the other is a multi-category store.

The building’s access to one-stop research is a primary draw, Mamont added.

“We entertain buying offices with fashion shows, seminars and breakfasts,” she said. “We also work with style forecasters such as Worth Global Style Network. All of their resources are centralized in one place.”

The Cal Mart, already home to the retail buying offices of Charlotte Russe Inc., Ross Stores Inc. and Value City Department Stores as well as resident offices of Directives West, Left Coast Style and Bregman & Associates, is about three-quarters leased, up from 60 percent in the last year, said Mamont. Meanwhile, the Cooper Building’s occupancy has grown 15 percent to 75 percent, said manager Steve Hirsh.

“Arden B. is a good start,” Hirsh said. “We’d love to see more of them.”

Hirsh said the building would even entertain the idea of grouping the buying offices on one floor.

To date, the New Mart, which is fully leased, hasn’t succeeded in attracting retail buying offices, but it would welcome the opportunity, said manager Ethan Eller.

“The more the merrier,” Eller said. “Our tenants would benefit from additional resources.”

For retailers, the core reason for their move is speed to market. They can no longer simply rely on video conferences to access information quickly.

“We’ve been more trendy in the past five years and need to be that much closer to the business,” said Ike Zekeria, Windsor’s co-owner and general merchandise manager. “If we’re not quick enough on something, we can’t reorder it and the order dies.”

Zekeria, who noted that Windsor’s business is 95 percent private label, said the showroom’s offices will include eight buyers and assistants as well as more specialized buyers in the future.

Meanwhile, most resident buying offices welcome the competition and don’t view the move as predatory.

“What’s really of concern [are] the consolidations and Chapter 11 filings that are in the news,” said Stuart Berman, president of Bregman & Associates, which represents May Co. department stores, a group that includes Lord & Taylor and Robinson’s-May. “Business has been tougher this year as department stores tighten their purse strings. It’s tougher to get reorders, and in finding new clients to service, we’re finding more resistance.”