Specialty retailers add market share

NEW YORK — Specialty stores have pulled even with department stores, with each garnering market share of 19 percent in home textiles sales for 2001.

The edging up of two percentage points from 2000 was attributable both to the strong sales and new stores growth from four long-time key players — Bed Bath & Beyond, Linens 'n Things, Pier 1 Imports and IKEA.

But the increased strength of the specialty store channel also was enhanced by the arrival on the Top 50 list of fast-growing Anna's Linens and HomeGoods.

In dollar terms the specialty stores scored the largest home textiles sales increases — 13 percent, or $3.660 billion, up from $3.240 billion in 2000.

And specialty stores were the only one of the six channels to record a double-digit sales increase. Indeed, the catalog and "others" channels saw sales drop.

The clear leaders in channel market share were the discount stores/supercenters, with a 45 percent share. Interestingly, this was the same share that the segment recorded for 2000.

This channel's dollar share increase of 4.8 percent just barely edged out the 4.4 percent dollar increase of the department store segment.

Discount department stores/supercenters, now together as a channel since many of the former are moving to the latter model, recorded sales of $8.702 billion compared with 2000's total of $8.300 billion.

Warehouse clubs in the Top 50 saw sales increase 7.2 percent to $268 million, up from $250 million, retaining a 1 percent channel share.

Department stores held their own in market share and saw sales for 2001 increase to $3.647 billion.

Catalogs took a big hit in 2001 in dollar share, dropping to $2.100 billion, compared with $2.295 billion in 2000, or a drop of 8.5 percent, largely because of the precipitous declines at JCPenney, Fingerhut and Spiegel. In terms of percentage share by channel, the catalogs slid only to 11 percent share from 12 percent in 2000.

At the bottom of the channel share distribution is the "others" channel, which includes Sears, newcomer Lowe's and the Army & Air Force Exchange. These players saw sales drop 2.5 percent to $1.005 billion. Market share dropped to 5 percent from 6 percent in 2000.