Last modified: Thursday, November 15, 2007 1:07 AM EST Phil and Anita Healey of Plainville check out an L. L. Bean boot ornament at the VIP reception at the new Bean store at Mansfield Crossing. There will be a private sale today for L.L. Bean credit card holders in advance of Friday’s grand opening. (Staff photo by TOM MAGUIRE) At L.L. Bean, 2nd try for expansion BY TED NESI SUN CHRONICLE STAFF MANSFIELD - There are a lot of stores at Mansfield Crossing, the new nine-acre shopping plaza off Route 140, and the majority of them are fixtures at retail centers all over New England, such as Borders, Kohl's and Best Buy. But one of the stores opening at Mansfield Crossing is a new entry on the local retail scene: L.L. Bean. After a private sale today for L.L. Bean credit card holders, the store is providing free food and a JumboTron this evening for an overnight tailgate party in advance of Friday morning's 9 a.m. grand opening, when the company will give away 500 gift cards and then remain open nonstop until Sunday night. The privately-held 95-year-old mainstay of mail-order is still best known for its thick catalogs full of apparel and outdoor equipment. The company will send 35 million catalogs this year, spokeswoman Laurie Brooks said, and about 80 percent of its $1.5 billion in revenue still comes from Internet and catalog sales. Since 2000, though, L.L. Bean has been building a retail store division, a project now in its second phase and arriving in Mansfield. CEO Christopher McCormick has said he wants the retail division to generate $1 billion by 2016. Of course, the company has had a successful brick-and-mortar location for a long time: Three million people a year visit the company's 200,000-square-foot flagship store in Freeport, Maine, which first opened in 1917 and has been open continuously - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year - since 1951. L.L. Bean also has a number of outlet stores. But the Freeport megastore did not provide a model for other, smaller locations, and disappointing sales at the first three stores built outside Maine led McCormick to halt the expansion in 2002. The company spent the next four years researching how to get retail right, and the Mansfield Crossing store, the company's 12th, is one of the first to incorporate the lessons L.L. Bean has learned. "This is kind of their second shot at expansion," said Doug Fleener, president and managing partner at Dynamic Experiences Group, a Lexington-based retail consulting firm, who also writes the blog Retail Contrarian. Back in 2000 and 2001, L.L. Bean opened stores in places like McLean, Va., and Columbia, Md. "They started going into markets where it didn't make sense and they didn't have brand recognition," Fleener said, comparing it to the botched expansion of another venerable New England retailer, Filene's Basement. "They didn't know where exactly to do it." Now, though, Fleener thinks L.L. Bean has found a formula for retail success. In fact, he and his family shop at the L.L. Bean that opened last year in Burlington, Mass., the first of the stores to open following McCormick's expansion hiatus. "They're absolutely picking the right demographic, and the right locations," he said. "The stores are good-size, which I think is so important. They're not trying to do just extra-small footprints." Fleener also said the company has learned the importance of making sure its brick-and-mortar stores mirror the catalog's outdoorsy feel, even while trying to attract shoppers mainly interested in apparel. "If you walked into an L.L. Bean without kayaks, they'd be just another clothing store," he said. That focus is apparent inside Mansfield's new L.L. Bean, which store manager Tim Bradbury said has a 60-40 split of outdoor gear and apparel. The merchandise will be familiar to anyone who has spent time browsing in an L.L. Bean catalog. Bradbury, a veteran of other outdoor retailers, comes to Mansfield from the company's Burlington operation, and he wastes no time in extolling the L.L. Bean brand - including its environmental streak (recycled wood flooring in a LEED-certified building), its high morale (employee pay starts at $10 and health insurance is offered to anyone working 20 hours a week or more), and its range of products (almost 50,000 different fishing flies in the Mansfield store alone). "We can help (everyone) from the rank novice to the intermediate in most activities," Bradbury said proudly, adding that in some activities, like fly fishing, the store can also help experts. He also pointed to employees, from an in-store bicycle mechanic to a knowledgeable fisherman, who can offer expertise to customers. Bradbury said Mansfield Crossing's location and the town's demographics both attracted L.L. Bean. The nearest stores are the one in Burlington and another in Windsor, Conn. L.L. Bean's brick-and-mortar store are also fully integrated with the mail-order catalog and the Web site, Bradbury said. That linking is key, Fleener said. "As a multichannel marketer, they need to make sure they continue to keep having that seamless experience between the catalog, the Web site, and the store," he said. "Right now, I'd say they're doing that well." L.L. Bean will soon face some stiff competition from the new Bass Pro Shops opening in Foxboro's Patriot Place, although Bradbury claimed to be unconcerned. Fleener said the two retailers have slightly different audiences. "Bass Pro Sports is a little more geared toward the fisherman and the hunter," he said, "versus L.L. Bean is for a more general sports/outdoors person. But they're definitely in the same segment." TED NESI covers Mansfield for The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at tnesi@thesunchronicle.com or 508-236-0434.