stralia, there are five Carter’s/OshKosh B’gosh stores, three in NSW at Westfield Bondi Junction, DFO Homebush, and Bankstown Central; and two in Victoria at DFO Essendon and Melbourne Emporium. Carter’s, which has an average pricepoint of between $7 and $9, mainly focuses on babywear, with Australian stores stock sizes up to 24 months, but over the next six months will increase this to cater for children up to 10 years old. OshKosh is skewed slightly towards the higher end of the price scale, starting at around $14.95 for a t-shirt, up to $90 for jackets. Steven Gahdmar, national retail manager, Carter’s/OshKosh, says there is scope for 20 to 30 Carter’s/Oshkosh B’gosh stores in Australia and New Zealand over the next five years. “It’s only been the last 18 months that we have started to rebrand stores and change the product mix and that is due to Carter’s buying OshKosh in America,” Gahdmar said. He is hoping the rollout will boost Carter’s/OshKosh’s positioning in the Australian childrenswear market, replicating a similar standing to that of its US counterpart. “What I think is going to happen in Australia is that a lot of those smaller childrenswear brands are going to fade and we’ll naturally take them out. In America, Carter’s owns 14 per cent of the kidswear market, Gap only owns four per cent, so they’re very strong in their age group, and we want to be like that. “We have a very strong backer in the US and they’re really happy to see it grow further. We want to take a cautious approach though, we want to crawl before we walk.” Potential locations for the brand include Blacktown, Liverpool, and Castle Hill in NSW, and the Central Coast. In Victoria, Gahdmar has Chadstone Shopping Centre in his sights. “We’ve been opening and closing stores, trying to find the right demographic. We’re slowly realising that the consumer that buys Carter’s/Oshkosh is very European, Middle Eastern, and Asian, so we’re trying to centre our stores around these demographics. “We have found a model now around 150 to 160sqm working really well for us.” Despite a target of 30 stores, Gahdmar says the group has placed expansion plans on hold for now as it looks to improve the business model, including the introduction of Carter’s childrenswear lines to the network over the next six months. “We’re planning to go to sizes for up to 10 year olds in the next six months and we want to establish that in Carter’s and see how the market reacts. Internationally that age group is just firing.” Gahdma says the group does not have plans for standalone concepts for each brand. “At this stage the plan is to always have Carter’s/OsKkosh. They both feed off each other, but at the same time are quite different.” Carters/OshKosh’s online database has around 14,500 members. “We really haven’t pushed that part of the business. I think it will naturally grow as we grow brand awareness in Australia and New Zealand.”