Colossal Bears
Yesterday NPR did a story about Colossal, a new apparel company that is targeting bears as their first niche market.
Bill Devine is a bear in Minneapolis. He says he sometimes has trouble finding clothes that flatter a belly he calls "rotund".Colossal is launching the line in an upcoming issue of A Bear's Life magazine.
DEVINE: After a while you get to the point where you just don't want to go shopping. You literally go in going, "Ok, this will fit. This will fit. I don't care."
Analysts say retailers have been banking for too long on that "I don't care" attitude. Some clothing labels have deliberately strayed from producing bigger sizes -- preferring only to have skinny people wear their clothes.
DEVINE: It's frustrating. It's frustrating to be kind of overlooked as a market, because in regards to I guess our disposable income, I would think that we would have just as much of it.
And they do. Bears have an average household income of $90,000 a year, and Devine says they're willing to pay more for quality. Marshall Cohen, a marketing analyst with the NPD group, says as Americans expand retailers ought to start thinking big. He says the bears are a good place to start.
MARSHALL COHEN: The most vocal consumer is the gay community within the male apparel industry. In other words, bears talk, and Colossal hopes they keep on talking.
