How To Sell XXXL

By Unmesh Kher

Pierre Sabourin, a venture capitalist and former amateur hockey player, has been so successful at losing weight, having dropped 165 lbs. on a rice diet, that he wants to share his secrets with others. But at 435 lbs., he is still keenly aware how hard it is for a wide body to navigate the many narrow armchairs and undersize seat belts of daily life. So even as he works excitedly to promote his just opened weight-loss camp, The Living Center, in Durham, N.C., Sabourin, 43, is operating a complementary business. He sells hard-to-find products to other folks his size at overweightpeople.com Looking for a scale that measures up to 500 lbs.? Sabourin's your man. Belly won't let you reach your ankles? Check out the extra-long shoehorns.

Sabourin has set up shop at a profitable crossroads. Today 65% of U.S. adults are classified as overweight, up from 46% two decades ago. And nearly a third of adults are considered obese (say, 190 lbs. or more for someone 5 ft. 6 in.), up from 14% in 1980. Any way you look at it, heavy Americans represent a fast-growing market with special needs. Until recently the business world's primary response was to pitch diets, workouts and potions to those determined to melt off the pounds. The weight-loss market grew to about $40 billion last year, from $33 billion in 1999, according to Marketdata Enterprises of Tampa, Fla. Even drastic measures are catching on. Last year 63,100 obese patients--including celebrities like Today show weatherman Al Roker--underwent surgery to have their stomach capacity reduced, an increase from 23,000 such operations in 1997.

Few weight-loss efforts, however, show long-term success. So a new business is building for mainstream firms that aim to make a profit by accommodating XXXL Americans and making their lives easier rather than trying to change them. "I'm not handicapped by my body," asserts Elizabeth Fisher, 42, a 350-lb. computer programmer in Baton Rouge, La., who made headlines when she tried (and failed) to force Honda to provide her with seat-belt extenders for her new Odyssey. "I'm handicapped by stuff that's too small." That situation is beginning to change as more companies modify their products and services to win business from bigger customers. Among the shifts under way:

AUTOMOBILES Despite Fisher's experience, most automakers are highly attentive to changes in demographics and consumer preferences. The wider profile of the U.S. buyer is cited as one reason that SUVs and other so-called light trucks outsold passenger cars in 2002. "The quickest way to alienate customers is to have them rubbing against something," says Michael Arbaugh, a top Ford interior designer. The seats in Ford's already spacious Lincoln Navigator were widened an inch for the 2003 model, and the room between driver and steering wheel was opened up considerably. In its 2003 Focus compact, Ford narrowed the center console, armrests and map pockets in doors to accommodate wider seats.

DaimlerChrysler and Ford have for years offered systems for extending seat belts. Honda has made the seats of its Civic and Accord two inches wider in response to customer requests. Car companies are starting to think ahead about this trend, perhaps because dealing with design problems after a product has been brought to market can be costly. Volvo recalled 65,000 station wagons for repairs when it learned that heavy passengers might short-circuit a heating mechanism in their seats, starting a fire.

FURNITURE while studying census and medical data in 2000, designers at mattressmaker Simmons noticed that the average American is 10% larger now than when its king and queen sizes were introduced four decades ago, according to Don Hofmann, senior vice president of marketing. So Simmons placed a 66-in.-wide platform on the 60-in. queen box spring, making room for a wider mattress dubbed the Olympic Queen. Hofmann believes the model has fueled an 8% growth in sales of his firm's larger mattresses. His hunch that Americans need more room in the sack is borne out by industry figures. Although the trend has not been directly linked to the fattening of America, between 1997 and 2001 the U.S. market share for queen-size mattresses has grown from 31% to 34%, while king sizes (76 in. across) have claimed an 8% share, up from 6%.

Chairs of all sorts seem to be matching the expansion of the American backside. "If I take the seat of a recliner from 21 in. to 24, it will be more popular," says Cabot Longnecker, vice president of merchandising at Berkline, based in Morristown, Tenn. "There are just a lot of wide-bottomed people out there." Longnecker is constantly pondering design tricks to help him broaden his recliner seats without making them look like love seats. He is also putting the finishing touches on a 500-lb.-capacity lift recliner--which lifts and tilts forward to help the obese stand up. It will be out in April and priced between $899 and $999.

Steelcase, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., makes a 500-lb.-capacity office chair, Criterion Plus, that is 5 in. wider than the 18-in. standard and sells for $1,500. Countless hours of watching people at work and noticing how much larger they had become, says product manager Ken Tameling, convinced Steelcase engineers that the seat of their ergonomic Leap chair should be set at 20 in. They engineered its backrest to produce greater resistance when heavy people lean back, as well as attached arms that move laterally. All this, says Tameling, has helped make sales of the $1,299 chair the fastest-growing of any chair Steelcase has ever sold.

CLOTHING Lane Bryant has targeted full-figured women for more than a century, but its new owner, Charming Shoppes, a plus-size retailer, opened 60 outlets last year, for a total of 696. Today 70% of the parent firm's $2.5 billion in revenues flow from the purses of the rubenesque. "Our customer is the average woman," says Dorrit Bern, Charming Shoppes CEO, "not the minority."

Half of all U.S. women today wear size 14 or larger; in 1985 the average size was 8. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the opportunity here," says Ceslie Armstrong, editor in chief of Grace Woman, a lifestyle magazine for the full-figured. Marshal Cohen, an analyst at NPD Fashionworld, a market-information service in Port Washington, N.Y., estimates that the retail market for plus-size apparel is worth $17 billion and accounts for 20% of the total women's clothing sales. It's one of the industry's fastest-growing segments, up 11% in 2001. (During sluggish 2002, when clothing sales dropped 4.3% overall, plus-size sales were down only 1%.) "Retailers that take this segment of the market and bring it front and center," says Cohen, "are the ones who will succeed."

In 1999 J.C. Penney started a separate special-sizes division that caters to full-figured women. Kmart has expanded the floor space devoted to plus-size clothes 25% and added a junior-plus-size department in 400 stores. Over the past three years, the retailer's plus-size sales have grown more than 15% and make up about 30% of its women's clothing sales. "Customers have been demanding it," says Nick Just, a general merchandise manager. "Why should plus-size clothes be dumpy?"

That's precisely what designers like Tommy Hilfiger, Liz Claiborne and Carmen Marc Valvo have been asking themselves. "Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes," observes Valvo, who made a name for himself designing evening gowns for such slinky stars as Kim Cattrall and Halle Berry. "The conventional wisdom was to cover big women up. I asked, 'Why can't she wear a sexy, low-cut neckline?'" So he carefully cut his patterns to flatter large women and provided balance to minimize the waistline--or create one if it was lacking. The effort, he says, has flattered his bottom line, contributing an estimated 10% to company sales.

The plus-size movement has gathered sufficient momentum to inspire a full-figured doll, a replica of size-14 fashion model Emme; about 12,000 have been sold since October. Still, some advertisers have a tough time adapting to the subtleties of promoting their products to any but the most svelte of women. Editor Armstrong says she returned submissions from a couple of advertisers who used thin, young models to display their wares. Grace Woman, she explained to them, is aimed at a more realistic (and moneyed) audience: primarily women in their mid-30s who wear size 12 to 14 and up. The young model promoting cosmetics wouldn't connect with them. The advertisers have since customized the material they submit to the magazine. And Grace's investors have decided to capitalize on their understanding of the plus-size market and move up the date of the launch of a boutique creative agency the company had intended to open in the fall.

MEDICAL EQUIPMENT Few are benefiting as directly from the increase in obesity as equipment manufacturers that cater to the bariatrics market--a branch of medicine that treats the severely obese. Michael Dionne, a physical therapist in Gainesville, GA., who specializes in bariatrics, says more and more hospitals call on him for help in reducing injuries to nurses and orderlies who must move an increasing number of greatly overweight patients. One Detroit hospital attributed 23 back injuries in two months to moving the obese.

Medical-equipment manufacturers such as Hill-Rom of Batesville, Ind., and Kinetic Concepts of San Antonio, Texas, rent and sell everything from heavy-duty commodes and wheelchairs to mechanized beds that can hold 500 lbs. to 1,000 lbs., help turn patients and feature air-circulation mattress systems to help prevent bedsores. The market for bed surfaces and accessories alone is estimated to be $150 million a year and is growing 15% annually. "As the obesity epidemic grows, so does our revenue," says Lynne Sly, vice president of marketing at Kinetic Concepts. Rental rates are steep--up to $200 a day for a bed--but worth it. Before such products were available and widely covered by Medicare and private insurance, recalls Joe Sacco of Central Medical Supplies in Long Valley, N.J., "we'd see patients sleeping on top of plywood propped up on cinder blocks." CMS's sales of heavy-duty beds have doubled in the past year.

TRAVEL AND ENTERTAINMENT Walt Disney theme-park managers say they haven't made specific changes to accommodate fat customers, but company staff members say they are now trained to deal sensitively with the obese. As a result, the company has won kudos at the many websites where overweight activists share their experiences and advice. When a customer approaches a turnstile that is obviously too small, Disney employees move quietly to open wheelchair gates. They discreetly pass out seat-belt extenders on some rides and steer large folk away from others, like Indiana Jones, that might prove dangerous to them. The company also stocks scooters and wide electric wheelchairs. "Disney World may not be perfect, but it's as close to heaven as a fat person can get," says Wanda Sykes, 33, a health-care administrator from Atlanta who weighs 285 lbs. "I visited the old Spanish fort in St. Augustine and got stuck in this dungeon room. It was horrible!"

Southwest Airlines announced last June that it would enforce a long-standing policy of requiring the obese to buy an extra seat based solely on the judgment of staff at the check-in counter that a particular passenger wouldn't fit in a single seat. Southwest says most people who have contacted the airline have supported the policy. And it doesn't seem to have hurt business. Southwest is the only one of the top five airlines that is in the black. But advocates for the obese are livid over the policy. "It infuriates both men and women," says Allen Steadham, 33, director of the International Size Acceptance Association, based in Austin, Texas, "but it seems like it's particularly devastating for some women." In fact, the airline industry has pretty much ignored the needs of the fat. Aside from catering to the widespread preference for king-size beds, hotels have also made minimal adaptations. Aware of this, entrepreneur Sabourin--who used to travel with 4-x-4 wooden blocks to prop up rickety hotel beds--sells vacation packages to resorts that qualify as fat friendly.

Still, marketers and manufacturers have only begun to address the needs of America's obese, let alone the merely fat. Bill Fabrey, co-owner of Amplestuff, the pioneering online and catalog retailer that sells more than 100 products to the obese, says fat customers represent "a reluctant market." They are, he notes, often too embarrassed to make demands. Another obstacle to better service for the fat market is that many national and global brands--whether cars or sneakers--want to be seen as young and hip and fear that any association with overweight customers will muddy their expensive imagemaking.

Attitudes are changing, though, as Americans grow heavier. Three-quarters of 8,000 people surveyed by the NPD Group felt that it's O.K. to be overweight, up from 45% in a similar survey in 1985. Sabourin, for his part, doesn't doubt there's new opportunity in the bloating of America. "I've seen the future," he says. "I've lived the future." --With reporting by Sally Donnelly/Washington, Jeanne DeQuine/Miami, Hilary Hylton/Austin, Broward Liston/Orlando, Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles, Joseph Szczesny/Detroit and Dody Tsiantar/New York

With reporting by Sally Donnelly/Washington, Jeanne DeQuine/Miami, Hilary Hylton/Austin, Broward Liston/Orlando, Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles, Joseph Szczesny/Detroit and Dody Tsiantar/New York