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  A Quiksilver Girls display at Surf Expo. Shop-eat-surf file photo.

We were curious to see what core retailers were doing with the floor space formerly allotted to Quiksilver Girls and QSW now that Quiksilver has closed the division.

 

We heard anecdotally from some retailers that Quiksilver Girls, though still small, had started to catch on, and the brand won Women’s Brand of the Year at this year’s SIMA Image Awards.

 

New CEO Andy Mooney said previously that the decision to shutter the division was a difficult one, but ultimately he believed Quiksilver Girls was taking shelf space and thus sales from Roxy and Quiksilver Men’s in Quiksilver-owned stores.

 

When I asked him for additional comment this week, he said that one-third of Quiksilver girls and women’s sales came from company stores.

 

“We were simply trading a Roxy sale for Quiksilver Women’s,” he said.

 

In addition, he thought if the brand met its growth plans in the future, it seemed inevitable that it would cannibalize Roxy’s business elsewhere as well.

 

The brand was still small at the wholesale channel compared to Roxy and other larger industry players. The wholesale business in North America was under $20 million, Andy said.

 

While Quiksilver Girls was still in its early stages, we know of some retailers that had planned sections for the brand.

 

Sammy Duvall, Curl, Orlando

Sammy: It was nice to see the Quiksilver Women’s brand evolve over the last few years. It had strong momentum and had continued to grow each season. Susan (Duvall) and her team felt the most recent line looked great. Our plan was to expand with the brand as the women’s/junior’s business overall is a key platform of our success.

 

That being said, the Roxy brand is back on track and continues to expand as they move forward. It will be interesting to see if and how key pieces from Quik Women’s get incorporated into the Roxy brand.

 

Regarding space, it is a premium at The Curl, and all space is performance based. At our new store in Downtown Disney, we had planned a whole buildout for Quiksilver Girls.

 

For the near future we will continue to buy and test other brands in this space, see how they perform and go from there.

 

Aaron and Ashlyn Pai, Huntington Surf & Sport, Huntington Beach

Aaron and Ashlyn: Quik women’s was a brand we really believed in and actually posted an increase for the last quarter of 2012. We didn’t really have a buildout, but we had space dedicated for Quik Women’s.

 

Will that space now go to Roxy products?

Aaron and Ashlyn: No because we already have enough space for Roxy. By the way, Roxy is doing very well!

 

Will that space go to other brands, if so, which ones?

Aaron and Ashlyn: Yes, it will go to brands like RVCA and Obey.

 

 

See page 2 for what South Coast Wahines, Ron Jon, 17th Street, Sun Diego
and Spyder Surf are doing with their space

 

 

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Heather Shields, South Coast Wahines, San Diego

Did you carry a lot of Quiksilver women product in the past? What about buildouts? Where will that money go now? 

Heather: This is a tough question. We had a fully stocked wall when I heard the news and decided to keep all orders through 5/25. Quik Girls offered us a discount to keep the future orders, which was nice. I was so disappointed with the news of Quik Girls dissolving – it was such a successful line for us.

 

At this time we have not decided on what will happen to the Quik Girl’s wall. We will weigh out the options, look at reports and decide from there.

 

Don Niemann, Ron Jon Surf Shop, Florida

Don: We carried basically a rack full in a couple of stores with consistent flow each month based on sales. We did use one of their floor fixtures but did not have a buildout.

 

Which brand will get that space now? 

Don: We are not designating one brand. We can now use the money to buy back into other best selling items or brands.

 

Tom Brown, 17th Street Surf Shop 

Tom: We started off with Quiksilver women’s in our Beach store only. We had one floor fixture and worked with them to develop a good flow of product each quarter.

 

While difficult the first few seasons, we began to see improvement in selling for 2012. Due to our requirements on profit and turn, the brand had not grown past that store and did not have a build out.

 

Dave Nash, Sun Diego, San Diego

We only carried a small amount of Quiksilver Women’s product and only in a couple of the stores. We never got to the point of doing a branded build-out and other brands filled the space without even noticing it was gone.

 

As far as filling the space with more Roxy — Roxy has been on a pretty good roll for a while now so our Roxy inventory has been increasing organically.

 

Allison Hopkins, Spyder Surf, Hermosa Beach

We carried a large amount of QSW and Quiksilver Girls as they were always in our top five brands. They had two dedicated floor racks that were always filled with product.

 

I am looking for a new brand or brands that can fill that void.