Pajama sales surged in April
Yahoo Finance's Myles Udland, Jennifer Rogers, Melody Hahm, and Dan Roberts discuss recent retail trends — including the spike in pajama sales amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Video Transcript
MYLES UDLAND: All right, welcome back to "The Final Round" here on Yahoo Finance. About seven minutes to go in today's trading session. Before we get to the bell, I want to talk a little bit about what's been going on in the retail space, specifically with apparel sales. I don't think it's a surprise to anybody to see the comfort trade working here, sales of pajamas more than doubling over last year, while sales of pants down some 13%. Now, Dan Roberts, you'll remember I think it was back in March, which is a lifetime ago, that we had a Walmart executive on this program who told us that this was really a big moment for tops.
DAN ROBERTS: Tops and not bottoms, Myles. And the Walmart exec was talking about the fact that everyone is on video conferencing, and you can only see them from the waist up. I'm wearing sweat pants right now. I wouldn't classify those as pajamas per se. But many people probably would.
All that really matters is the top up. Sales of pants down. Also sales of bras are down, according to this data. Now, this is just data from Adobe serving-- surveying retailers that CNBC reported on. But none of this is that surprising to me. And I think if you look at the last few weeks, retailers were kind of quick to jump on it and start pushing it hard and marketing it in their emails.
After I tweeted about that Walmart executive said, a few days later, a woman on Twitter replied to me. And then we're emailing. And she forwarded me a Rent the Runway marketing email. I don't receive those. And it was calling this the fashion mullet. And it was advertising pajama pants and also just leisure wear.
I mean, use whatever buzzword you want. And I don't think I athleisure is too far from it either. Athleisure was already hot. And it's probably also hot during this time. Although, I guess you could say people are staying inside, but we know that they're working out both in their houses, and in some areas, you could still go for a run, I guess, or go for a hike.
But I'm just not surprised that pants aren't selling much. And I'm sure that in the men's fashion area, dress pants and dress shirts are also not selling. Right now it's comfort.
MELODY HAHM: And California's interesting, too, because as you may recall on Friday, Governor Newsom actually relaxed some of the restrictions. So I went for a walk on Abbot Kinney, which is a very popular street, kind of like the Soho. And there were so many retail stores that were open, and they were all selling comfy clothes, right?
And they're all pickup only. So I was just wondering out loud, who is online ordering these pants driving here? But maybe based on these numbers here, if they want to do a hike and pick up a pair of PJs, that seems to be happening.
DAN ROBERTS: If it was Abbot Kinney, Melody, then I'm sure it was very expensive comfortable clothes.
MELODY HAHM: Exactly, like $150 sweat pants, basically.
JENNIFER ROGERS: Hey, Dan since your survey on the Rent the Runway news, I want to let you know now you can just go, and they have Zoom tops. So that's just a category--
DAN ROBERTS: Great.
JENNIFER ROGERS: --they've created. Yeah. It's very marvelous. Yeah.
MYLES UDLAND: Jen, are you still using Rent the Runway? You were a huge advocate back in the day.
JENNIFER ROGERS: I am. I have Rent the Runway on right now. This is a Rent the Runway top, yeah/ I think it's-- I mean, I just get them. I put them in the dryer because Melody and I talked about it before, is there any risk? I just throw them in the dryer, steam them all up, take them out, ready to go. Still ordering.
MELODY HAHM: I mean, is categorization helpful for you? Like, when you see it being Zoom tops, is that appealing? Have you used that category?
JENNIFER ROGERS: Yeah. Because otherwise, you know, you have to filter and stuff. I mean, I have so many hearts, Melody. I've got to thing figured out.
[LAUGHTER]
DAN ROBERTS: There's also some irony, guys, in the fact that Zoom has its various, you know, there's security concerns. And yet as Myles and I like to talk about, name brands that have become synonymous with the name of the whole genre. And I think now you hear a lot of people saying Zoom. And maybe it's not Zoom they're using. They're using something else. But now to hear that even fashion labels are playing off Zoom tops, people really benefiting from the Zoom boom.
MYLES UDLAND: Yeah. I-- I mean, it's just interesting to think about how you go about organizing your wardrobe. My Easter egg to viewers on the show is that I wear one shirt. This is-- I've worn the same shirt every day for, like, eight weeks because it doesn't matter. It's fine. It's good enough. And it doesn't need to be cleaned. Then it's great. My dry cleaning bill has been significantly cut. And I look forward to that being the case for some time in the future.
DAN ROBERTS: I mean, look at it.
JENNIFER ROGERS: How did we not notice that he wore the same shirt all the time? I mean, it's crazy.
MYLES UDLAND: I've had a few people mentioned it to me. But you know, until it becomes a problem, I'm going to keep rolling with this. It's great. And I haven't worn jeans in, like, two months. And I hope to never wear jeans again.
