And baby makes profits

Alicia Robinson

If your shopping list includes satin crib sheets, organic cotton

rompers or matching sweaters for mom, baby and the dog, the first

place to head is Newport Beach.

Consumer demand for baby and children’s products is huge, and a

number of new shops in the area are cutting themselves a slice of the

pie.

“I think the Newport Beach mom is looking for something really

special,” said Jacqueline Chase-Nemerofsky, owner of All the Rage

Baby at Crystal Cove Promenade. “She doesn’t want what the neighbor

has.”

Chase-Nemerofsky and her husband opened their store in December.

The store sells baby and children’s clothes and accessories from 175

vendors at prices ranging from $12 for a stuffed animal to $5,000 for

a hand-painted crib. A former interior designer, Chase-Nemerofsky

selected high fashion lines of baby clothes from Los Angeles, New

York and Europe.

“We knew that there was a need in this area for a baby store,”

Chase-Nemerofsky said. “We really don’t have any competition per se

with this type of store.”

Newport Beach is a family-oriented community, a factor that drew

babystyle, a retailer offering maternity and baby clothes as well as

strollers, baby carriers, nursery furniture and accessories.

Founded as a one-stop shop for maternity and baby needs, babystyle

opened a store in Fashion Island in May and has seen a flood of

customers since, spokeswoman Jan Genovese said.

More stores are on the way, looking to tap into that surge of

buyers.

“When we did our homework we found large numbers of our customers

were in the area,” said Johann Olivier, vice president of retail for

Hanna Andersson, a Portland-based children’s clothing company that

will open a store at Fashion Island this spring.

“The demographic was right for us.”

The company started in founder Gun Denhart’s garage and grew into

an online and catalog business as vibrant as the colors of the

children’s clothes it sells. Now with six retail and six outlet

stores, Hanna Andersson will add the Newport store and two other

locations in the first half of 2004, Olivier said.

STRONGER FINANCIALLY

A demographic shift in the population means people are

increasingly willing to spend top dollar on children, especially in

affluent Newport Beach, UC Irvine marketing professor Mary Gilly

said.

“[People are] older when they get married, they’re older when they

start having children, so they’re well-established financially,” she

said.

There’s also what Gilly called the “grandparent factor” -- while

some people are having fewer children, with today’s blended families

they may have more grandparents.

“I think their purse strings are even looser than the parents’

are,” she said.

The market has gotten increasingly competitive as established

adult clothing and accessories stores such as the Gap, Talbots and

Pottery Barn have expanded into the children’s market and new stores

exclusively for children have come onto the scene.

GETTING ATTENTION

Representatives of the three stores interviewed for this story

agreed the key ingredient to success is standing out from the crowd,

and each company has a different recipe.

Hanna Andersson differentiates itself by using organic cotton to

create soft, durable clothes. At babystyle, it’s the convenience of

having pre- and post-natal needs met under one roof. All the Rage

Baby carries complete lines from each designer so parents can buy a

whole outfit and accessories at the same time.

As privately held companies, none of the stores would disclose

sales figures, but Chase-Nemerofsky said her store’s sales are almost

twice as much as her projections, and babystyle plans to open six to

eight more stores in the next year.

If stores can find the right balance of novelty and value, they’re

likely to get some of the money parents like Newport Beach mom Alex

Flanagan spend on their little ones.

“This is my first [child], so I think I’m a little more apt to buy

things,” said Flanagan, who was shopping with her three-month-old

daughter at All the Rage Baby recently.

While reasonable prices are one of her priorities, Flanagan said

there’s plenty out there to tempt moms to buy.

“I guess it all depends on how much money you have and how much

you want to spend,” she said.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

[email protected].