Hello Everyone,

It’s that time again! Since we celebrated our third anniversary in July, I can now analyze three year’s worth of sales to discuss the sizes and styles we sell most.  I am incredibly excited for this opportunity because we have a significantly larger sample to use, and I feel this year’s analysis will demonstrate more diversity and stronger sizing trends.  Per usual, I want to start by discussing the demographics for our region as well as for our customers. Not only can age, income, and even race impact what sizes and styles customers purchased, but they can also be useful in identifying the current or emerging needs of our target market. Consequently, I wanted to include them as a way of providing context for our sales history. The statistical data for the county and city are courtesy of the US Census, but the information regarding customers will be strictly observational based on my experiences as I never collect customer’s personal details.

Below is a table consisting of the various counties from which we see the most customers, and I’ve included the average income as well as the percentage of white and black residents. All of the counties as well as the state contain roughly 52% female, so I decided not to include this figure in the chart.*

County	White	Black	Income
Alamance	71.7%	19.3%	$44,155
Guilford	58.8%	33.8%	$46,223
Orange	77.0%	12.2%	$55,241
Durham	53.1%	38.7%	$50,997
Wake	69.3%	21.4%	$65,826
Chatham	82.3%	13.3%	$57,793
Randolph	90.0%	6.3%	$41,575
Forsyth	67.8%	27.1%	$45,809

Since we are based in Burlington (Alamance County), I also am including background information on our city.**

• The median age is 38.3 years.
• 57% of population is white.
• 28% of population is black.

Now, I want to provide my personal observations from working in the store daily for the last two years:

• The median age is between 32 and 38 years.
• 52% of customers are white.
• 45% of customers are black.
• 3% of customers are other minorities.

What does race tell us?

Every year since we opened in 2011, our black and white customers have been moving toward an equalizing point.  Not only does this shift reinforce pleas from lingerie professionals for more diverse skin tone neutrals, but it casts an unflattering light on manufacturers who choose not to address the problem.  Furthermore, with such a strong showing from women of color, it begs the question why most lingerie models are white.  It’s 2014.  Have we not progressed to the point where we can embrace the beautiful spectrum of skin tone diversity both in what manufacturers produce as well as in who they select to represent the brand?  Because a significant portion of our customer base has a darker skin tone, I would love to see more options available in medium to darker neutrals like the chocolate brown Keira from Goddess, the honey Rita from Elomi, or the many cappuccino colorways from Wacoal.  Eveden sadly continues to rely on the safe black/nude dichotomy when positioning their new styles, and many other prominent companies are just as guilty.  Lingerie bloggers have written frequently about the insulting use of the word “nude” to describe light beige bras, and after finishing three years in business, my resolve has only strengthened that a larger variety of neutrals is essential.

In addition to diversity, our changing demographics have presented unique inventory challenges for the shop.  My goal is to incorporate a mix of skin tone options for our customers, but given that we are still a small store and can usually only afford to carry one color per style, it means we field questions on a daily basis why we have Bra A in beige or Bra B in black only.  As we become more established, I hope to feature at least two skin tone options for our best-selling styles, but in the meantime, I encourage our customers to be aware of the amazing diversity around them and how challenging it can be for retailers to meet those demands.  People are different and require a range of colors to suit their skin tones.  While we continue to expand, please remember we do have a generous special order policy for alternative colors.

What does income tell us?

Quite intuitively, we understand that if you make more money, you often have extra cash to spend on discretionary items. As a result, customers with higher incomes sometimes stock up on bras or are more likely to buy several throughout the year—often with an affinity for new fashion styles. These customers regularly purchase from the shop, which can translate to the appearance of more sales (both in dollar amount and quantity) in a certain band or cup sizes.

What does age tell us?

As with last year, the age range of our store mirrors the median age in the area, roughly mid-to-late thirties. Consequently, we see a shift not only in what these customers want but also in which styles will fit, especially compared with our teenage or college-age clients. Younger customers usually want push-up or cleavage-enhancing designs as well as fun colors and prints whereas our core customers prefer stocking up on basic bras in neutral colors with the occasional fun purchase thrown into the mix. Furthermore, as we age, we lose some firmness in our breasts—a process that can be exacerbated by weight fluctuations, pregnancy, or medication—and the fit element can be challenging, particularly with finding molded cup styles that contour well. This is part of the reason why the flexible cups of the Elomi Hermione or the Fantasie Rebecca enable these styles to dominate the competition. Finally, our younger customers also tend to wear smaller bands with the majority of our 28 and 30 band sales being to women under 25.

The Normalization Debate

When I first began my annual statistical series, I fielded criticism about the method in which I presented the statistics as I had neither provided the amount of total sales nor had I normalized the statistics to reduce the skew to certain sizes created by repeat customers. Last year, I devised a new system where the statistics showed percentages instead of amounts to keep my sales data private while still portraying an accurate picture, and I chose not to normalize them due to the enormous time component. Since the system succeeded, I am utilizing it again for this analysis.  Thus, this series does not represent the distribution of bra sizes across my customers but instead focuses on the distribution of sales across bra sizes. For the former, please read June of Braless in Brasil’s analysis of her underbust survey. My rationale serves dual purposes. First, I honestly do not have the time to sort through all of sales records to identify the cup and band sizes. Secondly, I feel it more useful to discuss what sells rather than what sizes we see. After all, I am a store owner, and when I make buying decisions, I am going to stock what sells and sells often over merchandise which may take me months to turnover. For example, if I sell size 32DDD 21 times as much as 28DD (yes, that’s true) even if it is only because I have repeat customers in the size, I will still stock more 32DDDs to keep up with demand.  Consequently, the statistical analysis will give you insight into how our store selects future inventory. If you wear a hard-to-find size, you may want to support retailers (and brands) by shopping with them, especially if you can afford to pay full price. Now, as a poor business owner, I understand budgets do not always allow this, but if a retailer hopes to stay open, it cannot afford to carry sizes which never sell or only sell on clearance. Profit margins are too low already to sustain that type of sale.  It’s disheartening when a customer asks “Is this all you have to try?” during a fitting, but I have to be conscious of how many SKUs we carry on hand and how quickly they turnover if we hope to keep our doors open.

With the demographics and background information covered, the next blog will cover the details on what band sizes people are purchasing!

Erica

* http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37000.html
** http://burlingtonnc.gov/index.aspx?NID=264