Top Retail Companies To Watch In Right Now

Top Retail Companies To Watch In Right Now: Aeropostale Inc (ARO)

Aeropostale, Inc., (Aeropostale), incorporated on September 1, 1995, is a mall-based, specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories, principally targeting 14 to 17 year-old young women and men through its Aeropostale stores and 4 to 12 year-old kids through its P.S. from Aeropostale stores. P.S. from Aeropostale products can be purchased in P.S. from Aeropostale stores, in certain Aeropostale stores, and online at www.ps4u.com. As of January 28, 2012, it operated 986 Aeropostale stores, consisting of 918 stores in 50 states and Puerto Rico, 68 stores in Canada, as well as 71 P.S. from Aeropostale stores in 20 states. The Company designs, sources, markets and sells all of its own merchandise. In addition, pursuant to a licensing agreement, it operated 14 Aeropostale and P.S. from Aeropostale stores in Middle East and South East Asia. During March 2011, it announced that it had signed a second licensing agreement. The licensee to this agreement is focused to open appr oximately 30 stores in stores in Turkey over the next five years. In November 2012, the Company acquired online women's fashion footwear and apparel retailer GoJane.com (GoJane).

P.S. from Aeropostale offers casual clothing and accessories focusing on kids between the ages of 4 and 12. It's P.S. from Aeropostale products are sold only at its stores and online through its e-commerce Websites, www.ps4u.com and www.aeropostale.com. The Company operates three street level stores in the New York City area. It also has a19,000 square foot Aeropostale store in the Times Square section of New York City. It offers both Aeropostale and P.S. from Aeropostale products in the Times Square store.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By WWW.DAILYFINANCE.COM]

  Jin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images NEW YORK -- Alison LePard, a 19-year-old college sophomore! from Wellesley, Massachusetts, says that when she shops for clothes and accessories, her goal is a look that is uniquely hers. So she does a lot of mixing and matching. "I don't blindly follow what they put out," LePard said of store displays. "I don't want to wear just one brand. I don't want to be a stereotype." She's hardly alone. Recent surveys have found that members of the millennial generation -- the roughly 80 million Americans born between 1977 and 2000 -- pride themselves on their individuality, and shop accordingly. Compared with their parents, millennials are far less likely to identify with a political party or to formally affiliate with a religion -- key indicators of an independent streak -- according to Pew Research Center. As shoppers, they are less attached to brands and more willing to create their own style, surveys by Nielsen, The Boston Consulting Group and other researchers have found. This generational trait is forcing retailers to rethink everything from their merchandise and marketing to their dressing rooms and logos. Some companies, including H&M and Urban Outfitters (URBN), have ridden the individuality wave while others, such as Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) and Aeropostale (ARO), have been slow to react and are paying the price. At stake is the $600 billion millennials spend a year in the United States, according to Accenture (ACN), a sum that's projected to grow to an estimated $1.4 trillion in 2020, when the oldest of the cohort will be 43. Millennial men spend twice as much a year on apparel as non-millennial men, while millennial women outspent other generations by a third, the consultants said.

  [Millennials] no longer want to be a walking billboard of a brand. Individualism is important to them, having their own sense of style.

• [By Jayson Derrick]

  Analysts at Jefferies maintained a Hold rating on Aeropostale (NYSE: ARO) with a price target lowered to $4 from a previous $5. Shares lost 9.97 percent, closing at $3.52.

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source! from Top Stocks For 2015:http://www.topstocksblog.com/top-retail-companies-to-watch-in-right-now.html