Southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island hunters, fishers, boaters and hikers who shop for their gear through big-name outdoor supply catalogs and Web sites have two new local options this month.
Within two days, L.L. Bean and Bass Pro Shops opened stores 10 miles apart – in Mansfield and Foxboro, respectively. Both retailers have tried to infuse their stores with local flavor and emphasized their connections to the community.
L.L. Bean’s 25,000-square-foot store is cluttered with local odds and ends, part of a sustainable building technique that follows the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standards. The wooden walkway is made from the remnants of a 100-year-old local barn; the flooring is made from recycled, dyed tires; the posts leading customers toward the register are taken from pickle barrels.
“We’re a camping store that’s well known for our environmental initiatives,” said Timothy Bradbury, the store manager. “It’s sustainable because we want to be a part of the community.”
Bass Pro Shops’ 140,000-square-foot store is currently featuring a photography exhibit by the late Ray Whitaker, a longtime Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife Board member. There is a 34,000-gallon aquarium with fish culled from local waters. And there’s an old fishing hut inside the store, brought from a nearby town, said Tom Keating, promotions manager for the store, located in Gillette Stadium’s Patriot Place.
“If we are just a cookie-cutter type store,” Keating said, “you’d say, ‘I’ll never make a visit to another Bass Pro Shops; I’ve already been to one.’ ”
But Bass designs each store using a team that makes location visits before committing to a design. That way, Keating said, each store feels connected to the location. For example, while the New England store has a wood exterior, the Ft. Myers, Fla., outlet has a steel and concrete façade. And the Bossier City, La., store has a “gator” pond to go along with its aquarium.
Both the new stores, too, are set on hiring local employees – for the holiday season, each store picked up more than 200 employees from the surrounding area.
“All the people now, all the management staff, are either from Massachusetts or Rhode Island,” Keating said.
While this is the 47th store opened by Bass Pro Shops, L.L. Bean has only in the past few years started to branch its retail centers away from its Maine flagship store. The Mansfield store is part of a push to increase retail locations by about five each year – this is the third this year and four are planned for 2008, said Laurie Brooks, company spokesperson.
The company, which records $1.5 billion in annual sales, isn’t pushing itself away from catalog sales, its long-time staple. Instead, it’s part of a “multi-channel strategy” of integrating catalog, Internet and in-store sales.
For both stores, first-day crowds swelled. About 30 customers camped outside the L.L. Bean store, and about 1,500 showed up to wait in line for the grand opening. At Bass Pro Shops, more than 8,000 customers – maybe as many as 10,000 – showed up for the opening, Keating said.
Customers get the royal treatment at L.L. Bean, Bradbury said. The company attracts employees who want to “try, buy and enjoy” along with the customers. The average length of service for an L.L. Bean employee is 14 years, he said, and they are all practicing outdoors people with practical advice. They will even show customers how to catch and release fish in the fishing department’s aquarium.
For the L.L. Bean opening, customer George Ryan drove about 30 miles from Johnston to the store, located off Interstate 495’s Exit 12.
“I had been to the one in Maine, the Freeport, Maine, store and I wanted to see if this matched up,” he said. “It went very well.”
“I even bought something – a sweater and a shirt.” •
