By: Lee Dubois

1
By Lee Dubois
2

Company Overview
- L. L. Bean was founded in 1912 by Leon Leonwood
Bean of Greenwood - First product The Bean Boot
handmade by Bean in his brother's basement in
Freeport. 90 of the initial batch sold were
returned broken this is where Bean's
money-back guarantee comes from. - Specializes
in - Outdoor equipment (canoes, tents, camping
gear, etc)? - Outerwear and Indoor Apparel -
Footwear - Luggage and Bags
3
Company Overview
- Major Competitors include - Land's End -
Eddie Bauer - Cabela's - Bass Pro Shops -
Primary Target Customers include - Avid
Outdoorsmen / Outdoorswomen. - Typically between
the ages of 35 and 54. - No plans to target the
younger urban segment. - Sales Channels -
Online - Retail Stores (36 worldwide)? -
Catalog Sales
4
Company Overview
- Placement within their market - Number 9
sporting goods retailer in the U. S. behind
Wal-Mart, Target, Dick's Sporting Goods,
Sports Authority, Foot Locker, Bass Pro Shops,
Cabela's, and Academy Sports. - 259th largest
privately owned company in 2005. - 73rd largest
mail-order house company. - Ranked number 8 in
the best apparel, fashion, textile, and
department store companies for gay and lesbian
employees.
5
Company Overview
6
Challenges

- Competitive environment becoming much more
complicated. - Consumer tastes are beginning to
change. - Evolution of the Internet,
e-marketing, and e-commerce. - Growing
popularity of retail stores and retail
shopping. - The drop of the Japanese economy and
the decreasing value of the Yen. - L.L. Bean,
in the 1980s and 1990s, had become very popular
in Japan. Japan was doing well at the time and
it's people were buying from Bean's left and
right, that is, until their economy started to
shift.
7
Initial Response
- L. L. Bean quickly jumped on the web bandwagon
and created a website. - The site was created
and launched in late 1995. - It featured little
more than product descriptions and pictures. -
Told viewers that they had to call in an order
for a product and that they could not order
online. - Gained criticism from critics and
competitors, who had also launched websites and
offered e-commerce to their customers, as well as
other features like clothing size comparison,
etc. - Bean's knew something had to give. They
had gotten in too soon, and their methods
quickly became obsolete.
8
Fixin' Up
- In response to their initial attempts to create
a website (and failing), L. L. Bean decided to
totally re-vamp the online experience. - They
developed a more feature-rich site including many
different things such as company background
information, outdoor tips, and a national park
directory. - The website also featured a
service that would allow customers to create a
custom address book of family and friends, and
a sort of "wish list" feature that would allow
the customers to compile different items into a
virtual shopping list. - Of course, they also
teamed up with IBM to create an e-commerce
selling platform (called Net.Commerce) to offer
online sales to their customers for the holiday
season of 1996.
9
Fixin' Up
"L.L. Bean's commitment to customers is the
cornerstone of our heritage. In presenting
secure on-line ordering, we seek to offer
customers a convenient way to shop, and to
assure them they will receive the same friendly
and knowledgeable service they have come to
expect from our catalog customer service
representatives and the sales staff at our retail
store." - Chris McCormick
10
Fixin' Up
- Other improvements that Bean's decided to
implement - Designing of new product lines such
as Freeport Studio. - Store remodeling
(Freeport). - New manufacturing equipment. -
New specialty catalogs. - Opening more retail
stores (across the U.S. and eventually Japan). -
Partnering with Unica (the company that acquired
MarketSoft Corp)? and implementing their
Affinium software suite.
11

Nowadays
- Now, one can do just about anything on the L.L.
Bean website as it pertains to their
products - Monogramming - Embroidered
Logos - Special Gift Wrapping and Boxing -
Special Gift Ideas for the Holidays - Etc. -
Bean's now has a Japanese-language website! -
http//www.llbean.co.jp
12
Measuring Success
- In 2006, online sales from llbean.com surpassed
that of catalog sales! - Online sales in 2006
were 10 higher than those of the previous year,
and in the previous year (2005) online sales had
grown by twenty-eight percent! - In 2006, the
site has 73 million visits, which was 13 more
than those of the previous year. - Bean's sales
have been on the steady increase since
the implementation of the website, especially
the new and improved website.
13

14
Evaluating Response
- Understanding customer needs and behaviors
Bean was beginning to understand the trend
people's tastes were just changing. Trends
come and go, as always. Also, e-commerce was
making it's move around the time in question,
and the popularity of retail was beginning to
rise. They began contemplating a website and
the opening of more retail stores, as well as
strengthening their relationship with their
Japanese customers, a big source of sales. They
wanted to find other avenues of marketing, as
well, and started to watch what their other
competitors were doing. - Formulating a Strategy
to Fulfill Needs Bean figured they would
start off slow. They didn't want to just jump
in to the web and invest a whole lot of money
into something that might not come back
profitable. They figured they'd start off with
just a small description site and see how that
worked out first. They were also thinking
about other e-marketing methods like e-mail
marketing. However, when they began thinking of
going retail, their thought process was
different. They decided to try and aggressively
open up new stores.
15
Evaluating Response
- Implement Effectively and Efficiently -
They first got the site up and running towards
the end of 1995, with not many bells and
whistles. - They also started doing e-mail
marketing, again, being slow and basic. After
obtaining profits from their website and
email marketing, they invested this money into
the growth of these departments. - Now
they have a full-featured website and one of the
best emailmarketing programs available. -
While they may have missed out on a few
opportunities by not having a full featured site
up from the get-go, they did effectively
manage their risk and probably saved money by
taking it slow - Then, they beefed up the site
and introduced e-commerce using IBM's
Net.Commerce platform. - However, coming to
their retail store end, Bean's attempted to open
three large stores in two years, which did
not prove to be successful. - After a while,
however, they got the hang of it and now have a
total of 36 stores. - Formulating a Strategy to
Fulfill Needs At this point in time, Bean
didn't have to try and build a trusting
relationship with their existing customers
they've had one in place since 1912! Even if
somebody has never done business with L. L.
Bean, as long as they know who they are, they
know what type of reputation Bean has. For the
people that didn't know, all it takes is one
visit to the website or one browse in the
catalog to see that Bean's just isn't your
average company. One order from them and you'll
have a customer hooked.
16
Conclusion
- L. L. Bean was (and still is) a company that
knows what it's like to be able to grow. -
When times started changing, Bean's at least knew
that they had to change/modify some things. -
While their first attempts may not have been so
great, they learned from their mistakes and
figured out how to climb out of the hole they'd
dug. - Their first website wasn't too great, but
less than a year later, after seeing the
response, they jumped on creating a full-featured
site to draw in more revenues. - Their first
attempt at opening retail stores (other than
Freeport) wasn't too great either, but
eventually they got the hang of it, and now have
36 stores worldwide (27 in the U.S. And 9 in
Japan)?
17
Questions?
18
Photos Courtesy of the Following Sites
- http//216.103.81.150/Christmas99/christmas99.ht
ml - http//www.trinidadbirding.com/trips/2005_Ma
ine/maine.html - http//www.willallen.com/wla4_1Y
earOld.html - http//picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot
o/IIZjBuJwgd4NZupII4Zkdg - http//www.royalsborou
ghinn.com/llbean.htm - http//philadelphia.about.
com/cs/southjersey/l/aa_ll_bean.htm -
http//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ImageFreeport_l
lbean.jpg - http//www.beans-around-the-world.com
/llbean.html - http//www.labelscar.com/category/
maine/ - http//www.kendalltavern.com/specials.ht
ml