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New! McPete Sez Wholesale Directory
Page 1

China's Trade Policy
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Kmart to 
Axe Workers 
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Federated to Divest Lord & Taylor Division
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Top Forms to Design a
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Buyers' Best Sellers
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Ask Andy
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High-Tech Underwear in Demand
Page 3

Wholesale Prices up
 in  2005
Page 3

Ask Kevin
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Cortefiel Opens 5 Stores
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Sports Illustrated Model Loses Rights to Lingerie Name
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December Retailers' Sales Review
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                                      Page 3
Slimma Reports Profit Rise
Slimma has reported a rise in profit for the year ended September 2005, but said sales had fallen during the year as it exits the private-label sector.
Full-year profit grew to GBP1m compared to £0.9m previously. Turnover slipped to £23.19m from £25.93 the year before.
The company expects this year’s sales to comprise 92% of sales from its brands.
Slimma said earlier in the year it was shutting down its private-label business in order to concentrate on its own brands. Its private-label has been continuously damaged by heightening rivalry on the high-street.
The company has been building up its portfolio with the purchase of upmarket lingerie brand Beau Bra in July and dress maker Cattiva in August last year.
         
      
6/12
High-tech Underwear In Demand
High-tech thermal underwear is heating up the Warm Biz sales battle. 
Underwear and sporting goods manufacturers are marketing products made with fibers that can generate or control heat. 
Triumph International Ltd. is promoting underwear made of a fiber that contains ground minerals from undersea volcanoes in the Sea of Japan. 
The fiber, based on rayon and featuring three other types of mineral powders, emits far-infrared rays and enhances blood circulation, the company says. 
The sales pitch is that the bodies of the wearers warm up from the core as if they were soaking in a hot spring. 
The series of five items, including camisoles and tank tops, was released in September. Triumph is projecting sales of 130,000 items during the autumn and winter season. 
Men's clothing such as business shirts were the focus of the Cool Biz casual clothing campaign during the summer. Triumph says women's wear is also a key target of the Warm Biz, which kicked off in October. 
An official says demand is growing for underwear that protects against the cold. 
Wacoal Corp.'s Kaiteki Navi underwear utilizes a fiber incorporating a special polymer that generates heat when the ambient temperature is low. 
The polymer solidifies and emits heat when the temperature drops below 25 degrees. It turns to a liquid, or gel, and absorbs heat when the temperature rises above 25 degrees. 
Generally, people feel comfortable when the air temperature is between 25 and 29 degrees. 
The fiber, based on rayon and cotton, was developed by textile maker Omikenshi Co. 
Wacoal has released 14 items, including camisoles and briefs. The company is targeting sales of 700,000 units by February. 
Mizuno Corp. is beefing up sales of underwear, which features its Breath Thermo absorbent fiber that generates heat, to supermarkets and department stores. 
The fiber, which was developed 10 years ago with cooperation from textile maker Toyobo Co., has been used in underwear since 1997. It was initially used in skiwear. 
The fiber generates heat through a chemical reaction between hydrogen contained in water vapor from the human body and an exothermal material in the fiber's molecule. 
Mizuno says wet sheep, which give off a lot of steam, inspired the material's development. 
The company plans to sell 1.4 million items this season, up 17% from a year earlier.   
     

10/24
Wholesale Prices Up in 2005 
Increased fuel prices pushed inflation at the wholesale level up sharply in December.
The Labor Department reported that for all of 2005, wholesale prices rose by 5.4% percent. That was the biggest increase since a 5.7% increase in 1990, and another year in which surging oil costs pushed inflation higher. However, core inflation, excluding energy and food, was up a more moderate 1.7% in 2005, including a 0.1% increase in December.
The department's Producer Price Index, which measures price pressures before they reach the consumer, rose 0.9% in December, the biggest increase since a 1.7% jump in September. The culprit in both months was a big surge in gasoline costs, which spiked above $3 per gallon in early September, reflecting lost Gulf Coast production following Hurricane Katrina.
Energy costs were up 3.1% in December, with the gain led by a 12.3% rise in gasoline prices, the biggest one-month jump since a 12.7% increase in September.
Soaring energy costs, coupled with higher health care costs and worker's compensation insurance costs, are a concern for Delaware businesses, said Steve Quindlen, executive director of the Delaware Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which provides business advice to the state's manufacturers.
Not only are companies faced with higher costs for the gasoline and natural gas they use, but vendors and suppliers are raising prices to cover their increased costs, Quindlen said.
Textronics, a Wilmington company that developed a sports bra with a built-in heart rate monitor, uses Federal Express to deliver the item to customers. Federal Express imposed an 11% fuel surcharge, an increase that Textronics has absorbed without passing along to its customers, said Qaizar Hassonjee, chief development and commercial officer.
Usually, however, companies pass their increased costs on to their customers, said Saul Hoffman, chairman of the department of economics at the University of Delaware.
Wilmington-based DuPont Co. has had to handle rising energy costs.
"We've been combating high energy prices for the past eight quarters," said Carl Lukach, DuPont's vice president for investor relations. DuPont, has a multipart strategy, that includes conservation, price increases and looking to alternate energy sources.
Lukach said the company is less vulnerable to higher natural gas prices today, after having sold off its Invista fibers business in 2004. The fibers business, which DuPont sold to Koch Industries Inc. for $4.2 billion, used large amounts of natural gas to manufacture fibers such as Lycra and nylon.
The soaring cost of energy has been part of the reason behind recent DuPont price hikes, including in its automotive finishes and titanium dioxide businesses. In September, the company announced price hikes of 12 percent to 25 percent for its original auto equipment finishes. The company also said it was raising prices for refinishing systems used by repair shops.
DuPont, the world's largest maker of titanium dioxide, announced last month it was raising prices by 5 cents a pound effective Jan. 1 for all grades of titanium dioxide sold in the United States and Canada. Titanium dioxide is a white pigment used in many products, including paints, paper and plastics.
As for new energy sources, DuPont started using methane gas from landfills to power its plant in Memphis, Tenn., which makes concentrated soy protein. The company is looking at using alternate energy sources at other plants, Lukach said.
The 0.9% increase in wholesale prices in December followed a 0.7% plunge in prices in November. Economists had been expecting a rebound last month but the increase was more than double the 0.4% rise they had been predicting for the price index.
The increase was expected to keep the Federal Reserve on a path of gradually moving interest rates higher to make sure that energy price pressures do not spill over into more broad-based inflation problems.


3/24
  "Ask Kevin"
           For all of your website questions...
Kevin and his wife have been retailing lingerie and adult products since 1988. They believe that a large portion of their business success came from the  addition of their websites to their retail store and that in today's fast paced market, internet marketing goes hand in hand with any business.
Kevin's personal site design experiences include all levels of internet marketing and design including secure server ordering processes, merchant account integration, HTML editing, photo editing, graphic design and banner advertisements. All of which are needed on a business style website.
Kevin also designs websites and consults clients who want to do more business online.
Kevin welcomes your questions and comments regarding website design, internet marketing, photo editing, domain registrations hosting and more. For serious website entrepreneurs, he recommends this course for complete Internet marketing training. Internet Marketing & Site Optimization Tips: http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/848190
You can ask Kevin your questions at Kevin@mcpetesez.com

The "Ask Kevin" Column is an opinion Column and may not necessarily  reflect the views of  McPete Sez.          

“Final Fling Before the Ring”
Georges Fun Factory, one of the original bachelorette party line manufacturers and creator of “Bachelorette’s Last Night Out” (including the Checklist T-Shirt featured on Sex and the City) now offers “Final Fling Before the Ring”.
Georges Fun Factory’s bachelorette line has provided retailers with a large and profitable bachelorette section for years. The latest addition, “Fling Fling Before the Ring” takes the bachelorette section to a new eye appealing level.  With custom, upscale packaging and soft, feminine graphics, “Final Fling Before the Ring” appeals to your most selective customers.
Georges Fun Factory offers a full line of bachelorette and party goods. Jenniferbadner@adelphia.net    www.georgesfunfactory.com
  
      High Street Retailers 
       Losing Ground
New research has found that UK high street retailers are losing their share of the lucrative women’s outsize market, worth GBP3.5bn (US$6.2bn) in the latest year, because they are failing to provide the range and variety that larger women are now expecting.
But conversely, home shopping catalogues have gained share of the outsize market according to the latest data from Worldpanel Fashion.
Sales of dress size 16+ account for a third of all expenditure on women’s clothing (excluding underwear and nightwear).
Many high street stores have broadened their ranges of both smaller and larger sized collections in an effort to tap into these profitable markets. However, high street share of the outsize market rose to 64.4% in the 12 weeks to November 14, 2004, but fell back to 61.6% in the 12 weeks to November 13, 2005. 
In contrast, home shopping catalogues’ share of the outsize market has risen from 13.1% to 14.3% in the 12 weeks to November 13, 2005 versus 2004. 
This represents nearly double home shopping’s overall 7.4% share of total women’s outer clothing, which stands at 7.4% having fallen from 8.5% share last year, indicating that catalogues are once again strengthening their position by providing specialist collections targeted at niche sectors of the population. 



  Saudi Women to Receive
     Employment Training
Nearly 500 Saudi women will be trained by the Saudi education and training establishment to work as saleswomen in lingerie shops, as security guards and electrical and electronic maintenance workers.
The establishment finalized its plan during a meeting held recently at the Prince Salman Social Center in Riyadh with Princess Jawhara bint Faisal bin Turki, the honorary president of the establishment, in the chair.
Female prisoners, patients at Amal Hospital and Nakaha Hospital would also be provided training with the support of the Al Nahda Women’s Charitable Organization.
A survey conducted to seek women’s views regarding the training found that 81% of them were unaware of it despite their desire to join, 91% wanted to obtain training in the field of arts and cosmetics, and 53% said they could not afford the costs of the training.
The study also showed that 51% of specialized beauty centers did not have a Saudi female employee compared to 80% of tailoring houses that only have 30% of Saudi employees, 79% of which want to employ Saudi females and more than half of them stipulated training is a must.
This confirmed that there were many job opportunities for Saudi women in this field. 
           

      
Hey Sales Reps !!!
Would you like to write an article for this newsletter? we are looking for information for our readers and if you have anything to contribute  please e-mail me.  
            




                                                                       
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