The 32,000 square foot L.L. Bean at The Mall in Columbia exceeds sales expectations.

MCLEAN, VIRGINIA:  Why would a person travel to an L.L. Bean store, when he or she could leaf through the store's renowned catalog from the comfort of home? For one thing: tangibility.  "It's nice to be able to actually touch and try out a product," says Teresa Vitug, a resident of Fairfax, Virginia, and a shopper at L.L. Bean's Tysons Corner store in McLean, Virginia, the first full-line retail store outside of Maine.  "The catalog is great, but you can't always get a full sense of what you're looking at." 

L.L. Bean, the 89-year-old retailer and manufacturer of over 16,000 outdoor products, opened its second retail store outside of Maine on May 4, 2001.  Located on the grounds of Columbia Mall in Columbia, Maryland, the 32,000-square-foot store is exceeding sales expectations, according to Dick Leslie, director of retail planning and real estate for L.L. Bean.   The 1.2 million-square-foot, upscale mall recently underwent major renovations, and in addition to L.L. Bean, other new stores were added including Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, and Z' Tejas.

Like its counterpart in Tysons Corner, the grand opening of Columbia's L.L. Bean included all the fanfare one might expect from the premier outdoor retailer.  Games, fishing expositions and fun were on hand while shoppers trailed along the many aisles of outdoor lifestyle apparel and equipment.  Each retail store includes camping and hiking apparel, fishing rods, kayacks, tents, home goods, and even food.

While the retail stores are exceeding sales expectations, L.L. Bean is being cautious with expansion plans. "We've always been a catalog company," says Leslie.  "We're fine tuning the intricacies of running a retail store.  For now, we don't want to move too quickly.  We're planning on opening one to three stores per year." 
 

THE PLOTKIN COMPANY

The Plotkin Company, headquartered in Portland, Maine, provides professional commercial real estate services to national and regional retailers. Formed in 1998, the company offers a full array of consulting and tenant representation services.  President Larry Plotkin works with the real estate departments and top management of expanding retailers to develop location strategies including financial analysis, market criteria and selection, and a detailed location screening process. Once the plan has been established, Plotkin teams up with Divaris Real Estate to identify and secure specific locations, on a national basis. This may include marketing certain concepts to shopping center owners or developers, negotiating leases or purchase options and assembling a team of location researchers, brokers and lawyers.  The Divaris/Plotkin team is working on site selection for LLBean and Ron Jon Surf Shops as they pursue expansion programs.

Leslie, along with Gerald Divaris, CEO of Divaris Real Estate, and Larry Plotkin, president of The Plotkin Company, are working together on an expansion program that includes the greater areas of Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York. "There is a higher concentration of our catalog customers in these markets," says Leslie.  "Plus, they're relatively close to the flagship location (in Freeport, Maine), which makes managing the stores and distribution of merchandise a bit easier."

In addition to the high numbers of catalog customers, L.L. Bean's criteria for retail sites include proximity to major upscale shopping centers. The company looks for a high density of people with college degrees who earn over $75,000 per year.   In 2002, L. L. Bean will be opening a 33,000-square-foot store in a new lifestyle center in Marlton, New Jersey, a suburb of Greater Philadelphia.  The Promenade at Sagemore will be an upscale shopping experience, comprised of 250,000 to 300,000 square feet of space.  The center is currently under construction, and is due to open early next year.

But even if these stores are easily accessible, don't eliminate the catalog all together.  Vitug says,  "The good thing is that even if an item isn't in stock at the store, you still have the option of ordering from the catalog or the very-easy-to-use L. L. Bean website (www.llbean.com).  You're literally getting the best of all worlds."