OMG! Teens Slash Clothing Spending

Like a totally cool article about trends in teen apparel spending habits. The long and short is that while clothe spending is down, shoe spending is up. Like, duh!

While the comparable-store sales declines of leading teen retailers have been telling a mostly dismal tale for months now, Piper Jaffray's new "Taking Stock With Teens" survey pretty much confirms it: Among the 8,100 teens surveyed, with a median age of 16.7 years, spending on clothes is down 19%.

A bigger surprise, however, is that they are actually spending more on shoes -- a 9% increase, according to the 17th semiannual survey, and 8% more on accessories. In fact, shoes are hot: "Footwear posted the strongest year-over-year and sequential results at a 4% and 21% gain respectively," the Minneapolis-based brokerage firms says in its report -- "an indication that the strong footwear cycle, particularly relative to the weakness in apparel, continues for the youth demographic."

Link to the article