Another Discount Story
In the 60’s many made a trip to Norwalk, CT to buy Gant shirts at Decker’s. When Decker’s opened it was a small store and it sold Gant shirts which were purportedly “seconds”. Decker’s was owned by the Gant Shirt Company. Only a few insiders and family friends knew that Moe Decker didn’t own Decker’s. He did run it and was responsible for it’s success. The shirts were priced at about 25% below retail. This meant the Gant brothers made more per shirt selling them at Decker’s than they made when they sold their shirts to Chipp, Bloomingdales, etc. At the begining the shirts were “seconds”. As the business grew they needed more shirts than the number of seconds that the maufacturing process produced. Many of the “seconds” were now really first run shirts. A pretty good deal. Under Moe Decker’s guidence the “outlet” grew - offereing sweaters, ties, women’s wear, and men’s clothing. They expanded and ended up in what was a large former food market- an A & P ? I really don’t remember if it was an A & P or another chain. Shirts became a secondary product. Back then Decker’s clothing merchandise really was end of the season close outs of first run products, not products that were created to be sold at “discount prices.” Moe Decker was a close friend, as were Marty and Elliot Gant. Moe would call us when he made a buy of women’s Pringle cashmere sweaters, etc so that our wives could buy these products at a better price than that at which we could buy them. By the end of Decker’s run “discounting” had changed drastically. The nationwide hunger for discounted products greatly exceeded the quantity of end of the season items that could be purchased by discount operations from manufacturers. This gave rise to the production of products being made specifically for the discount market. It also gave rise to the counterfeit clothing industry. Moe related to me that periodically a truck would pull up to the Decker’s loading dock and someone would come in and ask him if he wanted to buy what they were selling. When he asked whose merchandise it was the answer was, ” Whose merchandise do you want it to be?”. They had a sewing machine in the back of the truck and labels from all the major stores- Saks, Bloomindales, Bonwit, etc. Moe Decker would never buy anthing from them. Another entry to be filed under “Things are not always what they seem to be.”
Tags: Decker's, Discounting
