Mike and Kika Beres originally planned to drive up from South Bend, Ind., and spend the day shopping on Michigan Avenue. But then they thought about what they would get for their money. Not much, they figured. So they opted for the out-of-the way Lighthouse Place outlet mall in Michigan City, Ind.
The lure? Bargains.
”You go to places that meet your needs,” said Kika Beres. She and her husband-he`s a CPA and she`s a dental hygienist-were buying up a storm for their two kids. Prices were as much as 50 percent less than retail for name-brand merchandise. There were more than 50 stores, offering Dansk china, Anne Klein dresses, Ralph Lauren Polo shirts, Carter`s children`s clothes, Jockey underwear, Revere pots, Florsheim shoes and much more.
”It makes you feel good to get a bargain. You feel like you`ve beaten the system,” said Betty Lusk, a teacher, who had made the trip of more than 50 miles to Michigan City from suburban Flossmoor just for the shopping. ”We didn`t go away for spring break, so this is my getaway.”
”Why pay retail?” asked Mike Beres with a smile.
Bargain-shopping, if you haven`t noticed, is decidedly in.
That`s the cry being heard across the country these days.
In the `70s and `80s, as Baby Boomers grew into consumerhood, the trend was to flaunt designer labels (and, by implication, the ability to pay full price for them): Calvin Klein jeans, Ralph Lauren Polo shirts, Izod knits. Now these upscale shoppers have grown used to name brands and quality, but with mortgages, school tuitions, two cars and other encumbrances of late Baby Boomerhood, they`re thinking twice about paying retail.
So it`s become almost chic to hit the factory outlets, even if shoppers caught in the elation of a bargain sometimes end up spending more than they would have at a retail store (or, obviously, by staying at home).
”These days, it`s not just what you buy but how you buy it,” observed Bernard Beck, a Northwestern University sociologist who specializes in popular culture. ”The heroes of the `80s were dealmakers, people like Donald Trump. Getting a deal-even on a polo shirt-has more cachet than ever before. It`s romantic. It`s sexy. It`s saying, `I`m an operator. I know my way around.` ” Melissa Marguerite had stopped at the Ralph Lauren Polo store, in Michigan City, on her way back to Wilmette from a business meeting. ”My husband would spend $70 for the same shirt. If I can get the same one for $30 here, it`s worth it (the trip). Everybody I know bargain-shops. You`re silly not to.”
”Instead of bragging about what they`ve spent, now people brag about what they`ve saved,” said Cheryl McArthur, the developer who opened Lighthouse Place. And manufacturers clearly are taking notice, using the outlet stores to unload damaged or year-end merchandise as well as to get customers to try their line. Also, given the volatile financial climate in retail-buyouts, takeovers, bankruptcies-the outlets may give manufacturers a safer, less complicated way to distribute a valued line.
Even some retailers are getting into the act. Mark Shale in Chicago has a new outlet store, at 2593 N. Elston Ave., that`s going like gangbusters. The Land`s End catalog company runs 11 of them.
”People always come up and show me what they bought at the outlet store,” said Mark Shale President Scott Baskin. ”I`m happy for them, but it hurts too, that they got such a good deal, below cost.” He said the outlet store was opened after tremendous response to the store`s periodic warehouse sales.
As venerable department stores such as Bonwit Teller and B. Altman are closing and others such as Bloomingdale`s are up for sale, upscale outlet malls like Lighthouse Place are booming: There are close to 250 around the country, and another 100 are planned.
McArthur`s 3-year-old company now runs eight such malls around the country, including Lakeside Marketplace in Kenosha, Wis., and has eight others planned. ”We`re told this is the only segment of the retail business that`s growing right now,” McArthur said. A similar enterprise in Kenosha, the Factory Outlet Centre, has more than 100 stores.
These manufacturers` outlet stores now generate $5 billion in sales, and off-price discount stores generate many times that, reports Terry Dunham, who monitors the industry as publisher of Value Retail News. ”People like getting more for their money and they like the thrill of the hunt,” Dunham said. They go by the busload to these malls, the way people go to Atlantic City to gamble or on a theater trip.
Spending time
Indeed, at the same time people complain they are time-crunched as never before, millions gladly will invest precious hours just to get a bargain-to drive to an outlet mall, to paw over merchandise in an off-price store like Marshalls or T.J. Maxx, to endure crowds at a big sale.
Witness last week`s scene at the Crate & Barrel store on Michigan Avenue. Thousands waited as long as five hours the first day of the store`s moving sale for the chance to buy C&B goods at half price. They ordered pizzas to be delivered to the line. They drank coffee. They joked and laughed about how crazy they were, but they stayed put. One woman reportedly scheduled her Caesarean delivery so as not to miss the sale.
The Crate & Barrel staff was flabbergasted by the turnout. It had to call in even more help than it had planned. By midweek, it was bringing in extra merchandise from other stores so the waiting customers wouldn`t be
disappointed. ”People are buying so much they can`t even carry it,” said Kim Kite, the store manager.
”It`s impulse shopping,” observed Darcy Riback, the regional designer, as she watched customers go by with black wooden plates or glass vases or dishes to heat butter in-not exactly necessities.
”It is truly behavior that defies explanation,” added Sid Dolittle, a retail consultant in Chicago. ”The customer is saying . . . `I don`t need anything, but I`ll come down and stand in line if you make me a deal I can`t refuse.` ”
Even during the work week, customers patiently lined up outside for the privilege of buying goblets or pasta machines, fish poachers and honey pots, martini pitchers and ice buckets for half price. Even when they complained that the ”good stuff” was gone, they kept shopping, waiting more than a half-hour in checkout lines that snaked around the inside of the store.
”I`m one of those people who can`t pass up a sale,” explained Gail Kaitis, a high school guidance counselor who drove down from Evanston in hope of snaring a certain expensive teapot. The pot was gone, but Kaitis did buy some placemats and fancy paper plates. ”I`ll go through the entire store,”
she said. ”I like to shop and I`m a sucker for a bargain.”
Some customers acknowledged that they`d sneaked off from work to come. Others had brought tiny infants. Many said they had driven in from distant suburbs.
Ella Scott brought her job with her; the baby she takes care of sat complacently in his stroller while she stood in line. ”I always wait for sales so I can get more and get the nice things I want,” she explained. ”I don`t just shop.”
Off-price grandmother
No matter what your income, these days, you`re likely to think the way Ella Scott does, fueling the bargain business.
”I have five children, so I have to bargain-shop,” explained Valerie Tucker, a Gary housewife who was spending the day at the Michigan City mall with two of her teenagers. ”They want name brands, and this way I can get them for them.”
But be forewarned. Bargain-shopping can wreak havoc with your budget. Betty Lusk, of Flossmoor, who was shopping discount in lieu of a spring vacaion, joked: ”My husband is going to lose in the bargain.”
”People spend more,” McArthur acknowledged. ”They get caught in the fun of it.” And it doesn`t matter to the bargain hunters if they don`t score a hit every time out. ”It`s like fishing,” Dolittle explained. ”You don`t have to catch a fish every time to love fishing.”
That was obvious watching the women who gathered the other morning in Morton Grove waiting for Loehmann`s to open. Loehmann`s is the grandmother of the off-price stores. It was started in 1921 with the idea of giving women high fashion-and quality-for a fraction of the retail cost. Labels usually are ripped out, so women must judge the quality for themselves. Group dressing rooms are the rule.
But now as much as ever, women want what Loehmann`s is selling; there are 71 stores across the country. ”The psychology has never changed,” said Loehmann`s executive Hy Leder from his New York office. ”Women want to get high-quality fashion at a remarkable price now as much as they did in 1921.” The women waiting in Morton Grove the other morning knew that Loehmann`s was having an ”event”-a special shipment of new merchandise.
”If I`m going to spend $100, why not get something that`s worth $300?”
said Marie Morley, a graphic artist who had driven up from Chicago to be at Loehmann`s when it opened. Another customer said she stops by every week. Her best bargain? A $5 linen skirt.
There were high-powered businesswomen who had taken the morning off, North Shore matrons, and young mothers with their children. They laughed at the outfits that didn`t work; they exclaimed over the true bargains.
They all said they could well afford to go into a department store and buy what they needed. ”But it wouldn`t be as much fun,” explained Elaine Jaffe, who lives in Glencoe and was trying on a filmy polka-dotted number.
”Besides, it`s a great feeling to go into I. Magnin and see the same thing for more money,” added Marion Shrifter of Skokie.
At the same time, observes NU`s Beck, shoppers today no longer have the same loyalty to their local retailers as stores are gobbled up by huge conglomerates, sometimes changing their business practices overnight. Beck noted that people already are wondering if Marshall Field & Co. stores will still be the same once the new owners take over.
”The department stores have abused and confused consumers,” McArthur said. ”They don`t get service. They don`t believe in the price. Things come in and are on sale the next day. They`ll still go to the mall for the special item, but it`s not recreational shopping anymore.”
Selling service
The successful department stores, for their part, increasingly are trying to sell service, analysts say. If anything, they are de-emphasizing sales-getting as far away from off-price stores as possible. Instead, they are trying to position themselves as a place where you will find up-to-the minute fashion, where someone will help you to get what you want. ”You always know that you are getting first quality here,” said Kassie Davis, Field`s chief spokesman.
Many customers care more about the service than about bargains. Many are willing to pay top dollar to have the newest fashions. And no matter what bargains may be available, they won`t care enough to take the trouble to ferret them out. ”I have better things to do on Saturdays,” grumbled one executive who hates shopping with a passion.
But then there are people like Lien Newsome, a Chicago public school teacher on spring break. For her, shopping is sheer pleasure-especially when she isn`t looking for anything in particular. After an afternoon browsing through the outlet stores at Lighthouse Place, she and her friends planned to spend the next day at Oak Brook Mall`s department stores. ”We go from one extreme to the other, looking for bargains,” she declared.
