Introduction

The infants' and children's wear business consists of hundreds of small independently owned shops and dozens of larger retail chains. Because many of the companies in this industry are privately owned, the exact size of the industry is difficult to determine. The U.S. Census Bureau's 2000 listing of 5,600 infants' and children's wear stores included only those with a payroll that totaled $700 million.

Children's wear, a relatively small market in the apparel industry, has traditionally lacked the fierce competitiveness of other clothing sectors. Even in children's specialty shops, apparel on average only accounts for 17 percent of floor space and 16 percent of sales (baby furniture accounts for two-thirds of space and revenues). From 1995 to 2001 space dedicated to children's apparel in malls more than doubled but still only totaled 2.7 percent. However, during the first years of the twenty-first century, more national brands began producing small-sized versions of their teen and adult lines and invested heavily in expanding their infant and children clothing brands.