“Hot Topic was not immune to the broader consumer spending slowdown during the recession,” Mr. In late 2010, The Los Angeles Times reported on a financial dip at Hot Topic that led to staff cuts and store closures. That same year, the company announced a music discovery platform, ShockHound, which never took off and cost the company at least $3 million. The company experienced another surge in 2008, when “Twilight” fans were treated with in-store events and merchandise around the first film’s release.īut even Edward Cullen couldn’t inoculate Hot Topic against the retail apocalypse that has roiled physical stores and shopping centers since the Great Recession. ![]() bondholders sued Sycamore in 2017 for what they described as an “insider scheme” to profit from the company’s “crown jewel.”) ( Such investments have been key to Sycamore’s success - and caused the ire of some interested parties. Seeing a growth opportunity, Sycamore Partners spun off Torrid into its own company in 2015. Hot Topic was also among the first youth retailers to offer plus-size options, which sold so well that the company started a plus-size label, Torrid, in 2001. Orv and LeAnn Madden, who started the store out of their Southern California garage in October 1989, sold “The Nightmare Before Christmas” stockings and “South Park” stickers when those franchises had but nascent fandoms. Hot Topic has always been home to affordable fan gear. Or you can buy it on, where you won’t get a digital album download with your purchase, but you’ll spend less money. That means you can buy an Ariana Grande “Sweetener” T-shirt on the artist’s website, if you want. According to a company representative, more than 75 percent of Hot Topic’s products are the result of agreements with intellectual property owners, including record labels and entertainment studios, to license their official merchandise. What they want, it seems, is merch, and Hot Topic has plenty. We continue to question every single year, ‘What do customers want that they’re not getting anywhere else?’” “It’s kind of organically continued to change all the time, and I think that’s part of why we’re successful. ![]() “I knew it had changed a little bit and had gone from being considered solely as more of a goth brand to really evolving to be a much broader set of products over time,” Mr. His résumé includes the children’s clothier Gymboree and Urbio, a design company that manufactures vertical gardens. of Hot Topic since June 2016, said that he had watched the company’s evolution “from afar” through his work in retail before he joined the company. “They have completely kept up with what young consumers want.” “What Hot Topic has managed to do really amazingly - and quietly - is to pivot their products and their brand perception to cater to the next generation and what they’re most interested in,” said MaryLeigh Bliss, the vice president of content at Ypulse. In a 2018 report, the youth marketing research firm YPulse found that Gen Z and millennial shoppers deemed Hot Topic the top retail destination for “unique styles,” with Nike coming in second. Hot Topic currently operates 676 stores in the United States and Canada, up from 662 locations in 2014, in addition to an online store where one can buy goods from hundreds of entertainment franchises. The company’s sustained brick-and-mortar presence may also indicate its health amid reports of record-high mall vacancies and closures.
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