Citi Trends, Inc. (Citi Trends) is an off-price value retailer of apparel, accessories and home trends primarily for African American families in the United States.
The company offers culturally relevant fashion - what it calls Cultural Cachet - in apparel, accessories, and home goods, primarily for African American families in the United States. It curates a three-tiered mix of products featuring well-known brands, core products, and opening price goods, with intermittent extreme value deals....
Citi Trends, Inc. (Citi Trends) is an off-price value retailer of apparel, accessories and home trends primarily for African American families in the United States.
The company offers culturally relevant fashion - what it calls Cultural Cachet - in apparel, accessories, and home goods, primarily for African American families in the United States. It curates a three-tiered mix of products featuring well-known brands, core products, and opening price goods, with intermittent extreme value deals. The company's core product styles are curated to be trend-right, high quality, and provide value for the price. It offers an assortment of opening price products for price-conscious customers, all sold at competitive prices. Plus, for treasure hunters, the company often has extreme value product deals on well-known branded products at 50% to 75% off MSRP. Consumer insights research validates that the company's unique culturally relevant styling and strong value for the price foster deep customer loyalty and high shopping frequency in the neighborhoods in which it operates.
The company's stores are strategically located in vibrant African American neighborhoods with product offerings for the entire family. The stores average approximately 11,000 square feet of selling space and are typically found in outdoor community shopping centers across a variety of urban, suburban, and rural markets. As of February 1, 2025, the company operated various stores in 33 states.
Business Strategy
The key elements of the company's strategy are to offer compelling value proposition; focus on the African American customer; and improve productivity in its existing stores by sharpening its focus on its African American customers and strategically investing in product categories identified for intensification through its customer insights studies.
Product and Value
The company's merchandising strategy focuses on delivering fresh, fashionable, and trend-right apparel, accessories, and home products at exceptional value for cost-conscious African American families. As the go-to family store in the neighborhood, it is committed to maintaining a diverse, seasonally relevant assortment that reflects the bold style and preferences of its customers. The company's product offerings include a balanced mix of privately developed brands and nationally recognized labels, ensuring both quality and affordability.
The company's merchandise is represented by six distinct divisions within the store:
Womens: a wide selection of apparel for juniors, missy and plus size, including trend right sportswear, outerwear, sleepwear, lingerie and scrubs.
Mens: a wide selection of apparel for men and big men, including trend right sportswear and outerwear.
Kids: a wide assortment of basics, fashion and trends for boys up to size 20 and girls up to size 16. Also, sizes for newborns, infants and toddlers, as well as kids uniforms, accessories and sleepwear.
Accessories & Beauty: fashionable handbags, luggage, hats, belts, sunglasses, jewelry and watches for men and women, underwear and socks for the entire family, as well as beauty and fragrance offerings for women and men.
Home & Lifestyle: home goods for the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and decorative accessories, plus an eclectic composition of wants and needs such as books, food, tech products, team sports products, toys, health and beauty products and seasonal items.
Footwear: casual and dress footwear in sizes for men, women and kids.
Store Operations
The company's stores are located in the heart of the mid to lower income neighborhoods it serves. As of February 1, 2025, 91% of the company's store associates were African American or multicultural, and more than 90% of its store management positions are filled by women. The company caters to entire families and offers a compelling shopping experience in the communities in which it operates.
Advertising and Marketing
The company's marketing goals are to build awareness of the Citi Trends brand, promote customers' association of the Citi Trends brand with value, quality, fashion, and everyday low prices, engage customers in meaningful ways, and drive traffic into its stores. It generally focuses its organic advertising efforts on emails, social media, and text messaging. The company uses its social media channels to highlight its brand and engage customers with compelling digital content on a regular basis. The company generally focuses its paid marketing efforts on radio, digital ads, paid social media influencers, and website retargeting. The company's website, cititrends.com, showcases its latest products and provides information about its business, store locations, and more.
Distribution
The majority of merchandise sold in the company's stores is shipped directly from its company-operated distribution centers in Darlington, South Carolina, and Roland, Oklahoma, utilizing third-party delivery partners. The company's stores receive multiple shipments of merchandise each week from the distribution centers. In addition, the company utilizes a vendor direct-to-store shipping program that enables it to expedite the delivery of select merchandise to its stores by shipping directly from its vendors.
The Darlington distribution center has 550,000 square feet of space, and the Roland distribution center has 565,000 square feet of space. The distribution centers' value-added services include, but are not limited to, receiving, price ticketing, packing and shipping specific store-allocated quantities. The company continues to evaluate distribution, transportation and supply chain alternatives to accelerate the movement of merchandise from its vendor origin points to the company's stores as optimally as possible.
Intellectual Property
The company's marks registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office include 'Citi Trends,' 'Citi Steps,' 'Citi Trends Fashion for Less,' 'CitiHome,' 'CITIcares,' 'MCMXXXIII,' 'Lil Ms Hollywood,' 'Red Ape,' and 'Vintage Harlem.'
Seasonality
The nature of the company's business is seasonal. Historically, sales in the first and fourth quarters have been higher than sales achieved in the second and third quarters of the fiscal year (year ended February 1, 2025).
History
The company was founded in 1946. The company was incorporated in 1999. The company was formerly known as Allied Fashion, Inc. and changed its name to Citi Trends, Inc. in 2001.
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