Off-Price RetailersOne area that is experiencing strong growth is off-price retailing, the selling of brand-name and designer merchandise at lower-thannormal retail prices when they are at the late rise or early peak in the fashion cycle.In contrast ,regular discounters sell merchandise in the late peak and decline stages of the fashion cycle. Off-price retailers attribute part of their success to the fact that they provide an invaluable service to manufacturers and price-conscious customers.Because manufacturers must commit to fabric houses so far in advance (up to 18 months before garments will be in the stores),they risk not having enough orders to use the fabric they have ordered .For many years,mannufacturers took a loss when this happened. Then in the 1980s,when they had fewer orders than anticipated,they turned to off-pricers,who often pay full price for the fabric if the manufacturers will make it into garments at a lower cost.The manufacturers can more dasily aooord to cut their production costs than the cost of material they have already paid for.Off-pricers have in effect helped to smooth out the cyclical and often financially disastrous course of apparel manufacturing.Customers,in turn,benefit from being able to buy farments very similar to those that are being sold in exclusive sores for less than they would pay in those stores. The first major off-price retailer in the United States was Loehmann’s,which set up shop in Brooklyn in 1920 to sell “better”women’s wear.Until then,high-quality women’garments had been available only through exclusive department stores.The regular-priced stores,for their part,did not fail to notice the arrival of Loehmann’s on the retail scene.Department stores demanded that the discounter remove the labels so customers would not know what they were buying. Theat converntion held for decades,but labels are rarely removed today.