The Holiday Spirit Travels Online For Teen Apparel Retailers

Online shoppers are bringing cheer to teen apparel stocks this holiday season. According to a recent report from comScore, holiday online shopping has increased by 15% this year vs. 2010. Apparel & accessories remains a high growth category in online shopping for the holidays, and we expect retailers such as Aeropostale (NYSE:ARO), American Eagle Outfitters (NYSE:AEO), Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF), Gap Inc. (NYSE:GPS) and others to benefit from the increase  in Internet sales.

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Online sales are a record high for Holidays 2011

While retail sales have remained a source of concern for most apparel retailers in 2011, e-commerce has been a major growth driver for the apparel sector. The trend has emerged even more strongly during the holidays with holiday online sales expanding at a rate of 15% whereas retail growth for the season is expected to linger around 3-4%. According to comScore, the past three Mondays have clocked over $1 billion online sales.

The apparel sector has also performed exceptionally well in Internet sales as retailers such as Gap, Aeropostale, American Eagle have woven their holiday marketing campaigns keeping Internet business central to their strategies. For instance, Gap kick started its holiday special site  www.shopyourselfsocial.com and American Eagle launched its AE mobile app to woo online shoppers.

We expect the trend to continue throughout the holidays season.

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