Pacific Sunwear may not be the as fashion –forward as many people think, but the teen retailer is adding new brands that will continue to bolster sales and keep the kids coming in the door. PSUN shed their west coast shades and pitched in at the 13th Annual Wachovia Securities Nantucket Conference to present yet more positive news that will drive B-T-S sales higher.

After adding the Adio and DVS brands this spring, PSUN revealed Wednesday that the PacSun stores will be adding the Osiris brand in July, just in time to capitalize on the all-important Back-to-School season. The add makes three new footwear brands for the surf/skate lifestyle retailer that they did not have last year for fall.

These positive developments come on news from PacSun that it is not doing well with footwear from Nike’s recently acquired Hurley brand. They said that the “customer is not relating” to Hurley because it is more of a fashion footwear look inspired by Converse. PSUN is working with Hurley to “switch out styles” for B-T-S.

PacSun has added the Shorty’s apparel brand “after years of trying to buy it” and is performing well with it.

Additionally, the Paul Frank brand, which is geared toward the younger customer, driven primarily by the “Julius” the monkey cartoon product, has grown from a $2 million brand to a $10 million account.

The company was very frank about its position in the mall, indicating that their customer is a fashion follower, not a trendsetter. They used as an example the Hurley trucker caps introduced two years ago. PacSun couldn’t sell them that year or last year, but now see the category as 12% of the business for fall 2003.

The company’s push in footwear will flow over into its d.e.m.o. stores as well, indicating that they will have shoes in 75% of these urban fashion-driven stores. The footprint here is expected to grow to 2,700-3,000 square feet in part to accommodate footwear. d.e.m.o. stores are also adding more girl’s product, primarily from Phat Farm and Ecko Red.

Management revealed that some d.e.m.o. stores are doing as much as $1,000 per square foot.


>>> Skate’s dead, eh?