Forever Open

"People get mad at us when we kick them out, even at 2 a.m.," says a staffer at Forever 21′s Times Square store, in a Wall Street Journal piece by Shelly Banjo (8/3/10). As unlikely as it sounds, the store is something of a tourist attraction and stays open well past closing time for most other retailers — and even some so-called nightspots. Linda Chang, who is Forever 21′s marketing chief, says most of their other stores close at 9 p.m., even its Las Vegas store.

But New York is different: "New York is the city that never sleeps," she says. "Even at 2 a.m., foot traffic and sales are worth keeping the store open later." The store itself also stands apart from most other Forever 21 outlets, most of which are smallish, boutiques, and mall-based. The Times Square store is four stories high, measuring 90,000 square feet, and "is decorated like a tourist attraction," including "displays of New York paraphernalia such as a graffiti-adorned taxi cab and a mock Times Square display of signs, lights and mannequins." (images)

Linda, whose parents, Don and Jin Sook Chang, co-founded Forever 21, says the unusually late hours, like the department-store format, is both strategic and experimental. She notes that tourists tend to shop there just before heading home. As one such tourist explained, "It’s not open this late and it’s definitely not four stories in Florida." The downside is that the store also tends to attract late-night inebriateds, but they are managed by "a full force of security guards." Forever 21 expects sales of $3 billion this year, up from $2.3 billion in 2009.