Faced with successful price-cutting outlets to the north and the birth of a giant competitor in their midst, Lake County retailers are standing by an old-fashioned value to keep their customers: service.
”The biggest thing is going to be service,” said Sandi Merlock, owner of Sandi`s Peanut Butter & Jelly children`s clothing store in Zion. ”It`s basically straight service at all times. You will never look for a clerk” in her store, said Merlock, president of the Zion Business Association.
Whether it`s performing alterations immediately or making a delivery to a homebound customer, the smaller Lake County retailers are competing with Lakeside Marketplace and the Factory Outlet Center near Kenosha by offering what the outlets cannot.
Bob Metcalf, manager of Feinberg men`s store in downtown Waukegan, said sales clerks in his store are more professional than those found at the outlets.
”Service only. That`s what we`ve got,” he said. ”You work with customers, take them around to the various departments. You`ve got to know everything. If you don`t, they might as well go to the outlets.
”One gentleman who just bought a jacket can`t drive anymore, so I delivered it to him last night.”
Carol Fortner of Fortner`s Jewelry in Zion said three things are needed to keep customers: ”Service, service, service.”
The store`s previous owners warned Fortner and her husband not to carry some items, such as Noritake china, because they were available at the Kenosha outlets.
Still, she said, service is more important than inventoryL: ”If people don`t come in, I guess it`s their loss, because we try to treat people the best we can.”
Though many retailers said the outlets have not changed the way they do business, Merlock said, she has had to change her inventory.
”I will carry what they don`t have,” she said. She has many dress clothes for kids, but ”we no longer really carry play clothes” because the outlets are chock-full of them.
Margo Hochmeyer of Crawford`s Women`s World in Vernon Hills said one way to compete with the price-cutters is to carry up-to-date, top-quality merchandise. ”A lot of those are factory seconds and last year`s clothes,”
she said of outlet merchandise.
At the county`s retail hub in Vernon Hills, the Hawthorn Center completed a $9 million renovation of the mall`s interior in 1989. Matthew Roberts, who manages the mall along with RiverTree Court, Hawthorn Village Commons and Hawthorn Hills Fashion Square, said he does not think the outlets have had much effect on business. The renovations, he said, were aimed at keeping up with the times, not with the outlets.
”They serve two different markets,” he said. Kenosha shoppers ”aren`t regulars. They make day trips or bus trips.”
At outlets, he said, shopping can be hit or miss. ”Our stores have merchandise on a consistent basis.”
Shoppers echoed his comments. While she sometimes finds bargains on her occasional trips to Kenosha, Lisa Norland of Libertyville said she does most of her shopping in Vernon Hills or closer to home.
”Once in a while I`ll go up to Kenosha for the day,” she said. ”You never know what you`ll find, so if I really need something I get it here.”
Though retailers say they don`t think the Kenosha outlets have had much effect on them, there is competition everywhere, and the outlets siphon off some money that otherwise would stay in the county.
Warren Wood, Lake County senior planner for economic development, said it is hard to assess the overall state of the retail industry in the county.
”Any generality you could make, you could find contradictions. You can find flourishing retail and struggling retail and vacant space,” he said.
Lake County retailers will face a new struggle next fall, when the Gurnee Mills outlet mall is scheduled to open. With more than 2 million square feet of indoor mall space, the center, just off Interstate Highway 94, slightly northwest of Great America in Gurnee, is looking to give Kenosha a challenge. Wood said Gurnee Mills is expected to draw about 13 million shoppers a year to stores that will include Reading China & Glass, Sears Outlets and 49th Street Galleria. But Wood said that retailers or restaurateurs with visions of a huge new clientele should be warned that for most of these shoppers, Gurnee Mills will be their only stop in the county.
Patience O`Connor, spokeswoman for Western Development Corp., called the 13 million figure conservative. She said a similar project, Sawgrass Mills in Broward County, Fla., is drawing about 16 million people a year. The average Mills shopper will make one trip a month to the center, she said.
O`Connor said Western Development is not worried about competition from the Kenosha outlets. Gurnee Mills will bring ”such a strong roster of players” that it will have no trouble drawing customers.
The new mall actually may help the Kenosha outlets by drawing more people with disposable income to the area, according to O`Connor. ”This may become the mecca for the Midwest” for outlet shopping.
O`Connor said that the small retailers of Lake County may feel the pinch from the new mall but that the good ones will find ways to survive.
”I think that once that is open you are going to see a drastic change in the Route 50 mall (in Wisconsin),” said Randall Thomas, a Lake County planner.
Western Development officials also expect their mall to attract customers who otherwise would shop at the Kenosha centers. They estimate that Gurnee Mills will draw shoppers from as far as 100 miles and that it will provide about $33 million a year in sales tax revenue.
Lake County retailers are preparing to battle the latest behemoth the same way they have been fighting the outlets.
Kathryn Vaglienty, owner of Horsefeathers Vintage Boutique in Waukegan, said she believes in offering something different.
”Downtown allows people to try different things. In a mall, the overhead is so much that you don`t have the freedom to try different things,” she said. Because of low rents downtown, she was free to take chances. ”I started with nothing. I borrowed $750 and started this.”
Now Vaglienty owns the building, as well as the adjacent Cafe Kismet. Her success has come from finding a niche that the outlets and mall stores cannot touch. In addition to thousands of items of vintage clothing, she carries items from Africa and Latin America.
”I don`t think we can compete with the malls. I think to compete with the malls is suicide,” she said. ”We have to be an alternative.”
Don Henderson of Henderson`s Jewelry Store in downtown Waukegan said he is not particularly worried about the coming mega-mall.
”We have a relationship with the community that doesn`t depend on hanging a big sale sign in the window,” he said. ”I`m sure a lot of customers will go (to Gurnee Mills) and see what they`ve got. I`ll go there and see what they`ve got. But people will continue to come here and send their children and grandchildren here.”
At Lakeside Marketplace, which counts Calvin Klein, Liz Claiborne and J. Crew outlets among its 64 stores, management said it isn`t worried about the impending arrival of Gurnee Mills.
Cheryl McArthur, president of the McArthur/Glen Group, said Gurnee Mills will be a ”completely different type of center” that will appeal to different shoppers.
”We like to keep it upscale,” she said. Gurnee Mills will have chain store outlets as its anchors, she said, while Lakeside Marketplace relies more on tony name-brand manufacturers. Lakeside Marketplace draws ”more of a double-income, college-educated yuppie type,” according to McArthur.
”People will happily drive from a 150-mile radius to get to a tenant mix such as we have at Lakeside Marketplace,” McArthur said. ”They set aside a weekend day or a whole weekend.”
The mall has been so successful because ”people in the Chicago-Milwaukee area are very intelligent, savvy shoppers,” she said. ”It has given them an opportunity to buy quality merchandise directly from the manufacturer.”
She said she suspects that the Marketplace is not having a negative effect on Lake County. Her company owns 9 similar centers and has 11 more on the way. ”What we have found in most of our centers is that business has increased in the areas we have gone into.”
Still, she said, about 75 percent to 80 percent of the center`s shoppers come from Chicago or the northern suburbs.
Wood, the Lake County planner, said small retailers will continue to survive as the always have. At the downtown stores, he said, ”you get far more attention paid to you than at the national chain stores where everything is predicated on volume.”
Last winter, he said, he needed a new winter coat in a hurry. He told the salesman at Feinberg he needed the sleeves altered within an hour. The salesman took the coat to a nearby tailor and got the work done. Wood bought the coat.
And that, he said, is how Lake County retailers will continue to survive.
