Caught Unawares

Not being a grandparent or, for that matter, a parent, I've been rather oblivious to the arrival of generations subsequent to my own. In fact, I still think of my friends' kids as toddlers. But today's toddlers are actually the children of my friends' kids. Time just slips by, I guess. And there is no excuse for my negligence, since the warning signs were all there. I've been eligible for membership in AARP for some years now, and the Social Security Administration regularly notifies me about the (paltry) amount I can expect to receive when I retire. The point is that the Baby Boom generation is quickly becoming a generation of grandparents. And that's an important demographic shift for retailers of all stripes, because the Boomers have money to spend, and they represent the greatest consumer generation in the history of the republic. We've designated this latest generation "Baby Boom, Take 3!" And this issue is devoted to the opportunities those youngsters provide specialty retailers. Many have already caught on to the phenomenon (see "Small Wonders," page 148), and those that haven't will see just how many vendors have expanded into baby lines when they visit the winter shows.

We know of a couple of major vendors in the gift industry who are worried about sustaining growth in the specialty market and are therefore casting a wanton eye at the mass market. Certainly the big box and dollar stores have squeezed the independents, as Geoff Gudewill, president of Axicon World Imports, reminded us in a recent interview. Gudewill's company is a mid-size importer of gift and jewelry products for specialty retailers. The challenges he sees aren't restricted to the retail level. "There's over-capacity at the wholesale level," he says, "Because it's an easy business to get into. That makes it more competitive, putting pressure on wholesalers to offer more value in pricing. Life cycles are shorter. When you introduced a new product, you used to expect four or five years of sales. Now it's two or three — maybe less. You have to keep reinventing yourself. But it's good for retailers. And at the wholesale level, we need to support our remaining retailers to enable them to compete." That has to be music to a specialty retailer's ears. You can read more about Axicon World Imports on page 156.