the 06/17/2008

Retailer's strategy spurs growth in tough economy

 low cut shoes The chain is the exclusive seller for actress Sarah JessicaParker's clothing line and basketball player Stephon Marbury'sathletic shoes. It plans to add 70 stores this year. Never heard of Steve & Barry's? You're not alone. The 23-year-old, 264-store clothing chain headquartered on LongIsland does no advertising. It does not sell anything throughcatalogs or on the Internet. And it puts its bare-bones stores inplaces where it can make deals on rent, such as underperformingmalls. Locally, you can find one at Kingston Plaza, 300 Plaza Road,Kingston. Karin Boria, 43, of Tucson, Ariz., normally shops at Macy's. Butrecently she drove to Desert Sky Mall in Phoenix to visit the onlySteve & Barry's in Arizona. She had read about the store inGlamour. "I got here and found out that everything costs $8.98," Boria saidas she looked through racks of Bitten, Parker's line. "I am reallysurprised. I had read everything was $18.98." The $8.98 price tags are a promotion Steve & Barry's began duringthe winter holidays. The prices have continued be-cause of the sloweconomy. The company says regular prices eventually will berestored, but nothing will sell for more than $20. Howard Schacter, Steve & Barry's chief partnership officer, saidhis company competes with Wal-Mart and other big discounters bykeeping product quality high and expenses low on everything else:manufacturing, shipping, storage, travel, rent and marketing. "How we do it is by looking at a garment from the minute the cottonis plucked until the shirt goes into the shopping bag at thecheckout," Schacter said. "We look at 1,000 points along the production line and cut out thefat. We also are producing at a very, very high volume. But noticeI did not talk about cutting back when it comes to the fabric orthe cut. It's about all the other aspects of the business." Keeping expenses low Schacter, for instance, said office chairs at Steve & Barry's PortWashington, Nassau County, headquarters cost about $20 each. Whenhe came to Phoenix for store business a few weeks ago, he spentonly $200 on the fare by taking a flight that made a stop inHouston. Then, he checked into an Econo Lodge. The obsession with keeping costs and price tags low is helpingSteve & Barry's thrive and expand in an economy when similarstores, such as Gap and Old Navy, are struggling. The company also partners with celebrities such as Marbury andParker, who have said they are on personal crusades for inexpensivefashion. Steve & Barry's received a huge amount of press in 2006, afterMarbury went on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to talk about his low-costfootwear. The same thing happened last year when Parker made theTV-show rounds to promote Bitten. The company is hoping for another surge in customers and publicityfrom the recent opening of the "Sex and the City" movie. Steve &Barry's is the only retailer to carry the film's official T-shirts.