dd’s Discounts
Local Stores:
• 3522 National Ave., San Diego 92113
• 405 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido 92025
• Opening Feb. 25: 121 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road, San Marcos 92078
• Opening Feb. 25: 1325 Third Ave., Chula Vista 91911
View the photo gallery: dd’s DISCOUNTS
Coming soon to a strip mall near you: A deeper-discount clothing chain owned by the off-price giant Ross Stores.
The new stores are called dd’s Discounts, and they’re a slightly smaller, somewhat cheaper version of Ross Dress for Less stores with similar merchandise: brand-name clothing, shoes and home goods.
Last year, the company opened its first two dd’s Discounts in San Diego County, one in the Logan Heights area of San Diego and another in Escondido. The chain’s next stores, in Chula Vista and San Marcos, will open Feb. 25.
“Hopefully customers will be delighted when they shop the store,” said corporate spokeswoman Bobbi Chaville. “I think they’ll find some terrific savings on recognizable brands.”
Each store gets three to six deliveries a week, ensuring a fresh product mix, she said.
While Ross is best known for its Dress for Less stores — there are just under 1,000 of them — it has big plans for the dd’s Discounts store format, which was launched in 2004.
There are currently 88 dd’s Discounts stores nationwide, and 20 more are opening this year, many in strip malls and older shopping centers. Eventually, there could be as many as 500, the company says.
The publicly traded company appears to be capitalizing on two trends: low-priced commercial real estate and value-minded consumers, said Bernhard Schroeder, director of the Entrepreneurial Management Center at San Diego State University.
Schroeder said that Ross seems to be creating a new, deeper-discount off-price concept — “sort of a space between the dollar store and Ross and Marshalls.”
It’s a smart strategy, he said, because Ross knows what sells well in its larger stores and can edit down its product mix for the smaller format. “I don’t know if the consumer will buy it; time will tell,” he said. “The question is: ‘Will it have legs beyond the recession?’ ”
Different brands
Both Ross and dd’s Discounts target value-conscious women and men between the ages of 18 and 54, but dd’s Discounts stores aim to serve a slightly lower-income shopper than Ross stores.
The big difference between the two brands appears to be in the stores’ size and price point:
• Ross Dress for Less stores carry items you might find at a Macy’s or Dillards department store, but priced at 20 percent to 60 percent less, Chaville said. The stores are 25,000 to 30,000 square feet.
• Dd’s Discounts stores carry items you might find at Sears, Walmart or Kohl’s, but priced at 20 percent to 70 percent less. The stores are 20,000 to 25,000 square feet and have a larger children’s department.
The company’s buyers are located in garment centers in New York City and Los Angeles, where they buy closeouts and canceled orders.
There’s a separate buying team for dd’s Discounts so the merchandise mix will be “very different,” Chaville said, although there could be some overlap of brand names.
Inside the store
San Diego’s first dd’s Discounts store opened last summer on National Avenue in Logan Heights. It’s in a neat but aging strip mall along with a neighborhood grocer, an Everything’s a Deal store and an auto-parts store.
The store appeared well-organized with wide aisles. Some of the items on sale were wallets in red, purple, brown and faux snakeskin for $2.99 to $6.99; sunglasses for $3.99; and a set of “super soft” wrinkle-free polyester king-size sheets for $12.99. There’s a big children’s shoe section.
Jasmine Resendiz, 20, was browsing with her 1-year-old daughter and husband, C.J. Cottingham. “I like (the store) — it has good clothes, good prices,” she said, looking through a rack of $4.99 tank tops. “I’m looking for a shirt, something pretty. I don’t know yet.”
Cottingham was wearing an outfit he had purchased at dd’s Discounts — a red-and-white striped T-shirt and stonewashed jeans. “It’s a pretty nice store,” he said.
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