Marketing: Custom Edition for Texas A&M University 17th Edition by William Pride,Ferrell

Exercise 26

L.Bean: Open 24/7, Click or Brick
L.L.Bean, based in Freeport, Maine, began life as a one product firm selling by mail in 1912. Founder Leon Leonwood Bean designed and tested every product he sold, starting with the now-iconic rubber-soled Bean Boot. Today, the catalog business that L.L.Bean began is still going strong, along with 30 U.S. stores and a thriving online retail operation. In addition, L.L.Bean is expanding its retail presence in
Japan and China, where customers are particularly drawn to brand names that represent quality and a distinct personality. The company's outdoorsy image and innovative products, combined with a century-old reputation for standing behind every item, have made its stores popular shopping destinations around the world and around the Web.
Although the award-winning L.L.Bean catalog swelled in size during the 1980s and 1990s, it has slimmed down over the years as the online store has grown. Now, using sophisticated marketing database systems, L.L.Bean manages and updates the mailing lists and customer preferences for its catalogs. For targeting purposes, L.L.Bean creates 50 different catalogs that are mailed to selected customers across the United States and in 160 countries worldwide. The company's computer modeling tools indicate which customers are interested in which products so they receive only the specialized catalogs they desire. Still, says the vice president of stores, "what we find is most customers want some sort of touch point," whether they buy online, in a store, by mail, or by phone.
The company's flagship retail store in Freeport, Maine, like its online counterpart, is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, throughout the year. Even on major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, when most other stores are closed, the flagship store is open for business. It stocks extra merchandise and hires additional employees for busy buying periods, as does the online store. Day or night, rain or shine, customers can walk the aisles of the gigantic Freeport store to browse an assortment of clothing and footwear for men, women, and children; try out camping gear and other sporting goods; buy home goods like blankets; and check out pet supplies. Every week, the store offers hands-on demonstrations and how-to seminars to educate customers about its products. Customers can pause for a cup of coffee or sit down to a full meal at the in-store café. Thanks to the store's enormous size and entertaining extras, it has become a tourist attraction as well as the centerpiece of L.L.Bean's retail empire.
L.L.Bean's online store continues to grow in popularity. In fact, online orders recently surpassed mail and phone orders, a first in the company's history, and the company also offers a mobile app for anytime, anywhere access via cell phone. The web-based store is busy year-round, but especially during the Christmas shopping season, when it receives a virtual blizzard of orders-as many as 120,000 orders in a day. Unlike the physical stores, which have limited space to hold and display inventory for shoppers to buy in person, the online store can offer every product in every size and color. Customers can order via the Web and have purchases sent to their home or office address or shipped to a local L.L.Bean store for pickup. This latter option is particularly convenient for customers who prefer to pay with cash rather than credit or debit cards.
At the start of L.L.Bean's second century, its dedication to customer satisfaction is as strong as when Leon Leonwood Bean began his mail-order business so many decades ago. "We want to keep... the customer happy and keep that customer coming back to L.L.Bean over and over," explains the vice president of e-commerce.
Do you think L.L.Bean's website will ever entirely take the place of its mail-order catalog? Why or why not?