Irvine-based surf and sportswear retailer Tilly’s is set to open a store in Anaheim Hills next month, with plans to unveil up to five more Southern California outlets in 2001.
The 10,000-square-foot Anaheim store is set for the Festival Shopping Center on Santa Ana Canyon Road near Weir Canyon Road. Meanwhile, privately held Tilly’s is scouting San Diego and Los Angeles for other new stores, said Hezy Shaked, the company’s president and chief executive.
“Since real estate is a matter of opportunity, we will expand as locations become available,” he said.
With each store, Shaked said he plans to add 20 to 40 employees to Tilly’s staff, which now stands at 450 employees.
Tilly’s caters to 12- to 28-year-olds seeking the latest in surf, sportswear and casual fashions. The stores, with trendy d & #233;cor and staffed by young workers who talk to each other via wireless headsets, are filled with offerings from Orange County companies such as Quiksilver Inc., Hurley International and Ocean Pacific.
In OC, Tilly’s counts nine stores from Brea to Rancho Santa Margarita. It has another two in Long Beach, one in Ontario and one in Temecula. Rivals include Anaheim-based Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., Santa Fe Springs-based Vans Inc. and scores of smaller shops targeting young consumers.
Founded by Shaked and his wife in 1982, Tilly’s began with one 2,800-square-foot store in Los Alamitos. Its stores now range from 6,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet. Shaked declined to disclose annual revenue figures for Tilly’s.
Tony Cherbak, a partner in the consumer products group at Deloitte & Touche LLP’s Costa Mesa office, estimated that Tilly’s does about $350 to $450 in sales per square foot in its stores.
“That’s probably a relatively conservative estimate,” he said. “They could go upwards of $500 per square foot in some of their stores.”
Cherbak credits Tilly’s with clever merchandising, smart buying and ability to key into its target customer,a sometimes-fickle group with big spending potential. The 12- to 24-year-old group alone spends more than $100 billion annually, and 30% of that figure is on apparel, he said.
“Tilly’s has catered to that customer,” Cherbak said. “They’ve made them feel comfortable within their stores.”
One challenge facing a relatively young chain such as Tilly’s, which finances its growth internally, is getting into prime locations, Cherbak said.
“Location is everything,” Cherbak adds. “If you get a bad one, it’s going to be an exercise in cost.”
So far, Tilly’s has staked out shopping centers such as the Block at Orange, Metro Pointe in Costa Mesa and Five Points in Huntington Beach. It doesn’t have any mall locations. n
