BANGOR – The regional manager of Porteous Department Store is having a difficult time figuring out shoppers – what they want, how much they are willing to spend, and when they want to go to the stores.

Bob Mills has been around retailing – and Porteous – for decades. In his early days, malls were starting to be constructed and shoppers loved their novelty. After all, the stores were in one place, under one roof, and the need to go back and forth to the car, especially in inclement weather, was eliminated.

Malls were places of entertainment. Shop, grab a bite to eat, sit and watch other people shop.

“That novelty probably wore off 10 years ago,” Mills said recently.

That’s when the Wal-Marts of the world started to become more prolific and profitable. They took the mall concept one step further – putting all the stores into just one store.

“They are the new department stores,” Mills acknowledged.

Mills remembers a time when product quality and good customer service were as much factors in a shopper’s purchasing decision as price. Building customer loyalty was paramount to a merchandiser then, and department stores were the ones to do it.

“Now price is more of a factor than when was I was a young man,” he said. “We were late to recognize that in the Bangor area.”

Retailing has entered an era in which people of all income levels are seeking a bargain when they shop. They want quality at a good price. If one store doesn’t offer that, they’ll go to the next one right down the street. After all, many stores are carrying the same brand names.

Mills is not alone in his observation.

“Folks in Maine are money-conscious,” said Jill Beaupre, an assistant manager at Prints Plus at the Bangor Mall. “They want the most value for their dollar. If you can get a bottle of shampoo for $2, you’re not going to spend $3 for it.”

Said one Wal-Mart manager who asked not to be identified, “We load stuff into new Mercedes, and we load stuff into Ford Tauruses. It’s more common, though, that we load stuff into a Ford Taurus.”

So what is Porteous, one of the four anchor stores at the Bangor Mall, to do?

For years managers and owners thought they were offering shoppers a different sort of retailing experience. Now the store is having an identity crisis. It is trying to find a niche in a retailing world that doesn’t seem to have very many individualists. For many shoppers, it seems, price is the one – the only – discernable characteristic that meshes – and not separates – all retailers.

Mills said he needs to find a way to have Porteous stand out.

How?

Experiment, he said. And hope something works.

Cutting back

One of the first things Porteous did was to change its store hours. Earlier this month, the retailer started opening at 9 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays but began closing at 6 p.m. Sunday hours are noon to 5 p.m.

Because of the change, some shoppers wonder if this is the beginning of the end for the retailer that’s been around since the Bangor Mall first opened in 1978.

In the early 1990s, the Porteous family sold the retail operations of Porteous Department Stores to The Dunlap Co. of Fort Worth, Texas. Dunlap also operates the Porteous stores in Auburn and Presque Isle. A Porteous store in Brunswick closed in June.

The Porteous family, though, retains ownership of the store building at the Bangor Mall. Dunlap has a lease on the building through 2003 and has the option to renew the rental agreement three times in three-year increments beyond then.

“I think that’s the message it sends, especially in light of the fact that they’ve closed other stores,” said Linda Toppi of Bangor, who was shopping with daughter Justine Toppi on Saturday at Porteous.

Mills said Porteous is not closing.

“When you make a change, people’s reactions are either positive or negative,” Mills said. “It’s certainly not based on fact. We want to keep Porteous in the Bangor area, and the only way to do that is to keep it profitable.”

Customers’ shopping habits influenced Mills’ decision to change hours. Many – primarily senior citizens – told Porteous employees that they wanted to shop earlier in the day. And sales figures at night were down, therefore not supporting the expense of keeping employees on the floor and lights on overhead.

“We’ve seen traffic diminish at night,” Mills said.

Linda Toppi said she understands why Porteous changed its hours, but believes the company is sending the wrong message by doing so.

“If you’re trying to promote business, I don’t think the way to do that is to close early,” Toppi said.

Laurie Babineau of West Enfield shops at Porteous, and has noticed “that there’s not a lot of traffic in there.

“I like Porteous,” she said. “I think they have nice things. If that’s what it takes for them to stay open, that’s what they have to do. I’d rather see them do that than them having to close the store.”

At J.C. Penney’s, opening earlier was what the customers wanted, so the store changed its opening time to 9 a.m. two years ago. The hustle, though, comes two hours later.

“The real peak hours are from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.,” store manager J.B. Klecha said recently.

He won’t follow Porteous’ lead and close at 6 p.m.

“We do a good sales volume after 6 p.m.,” Klecha said.

The mall’s anchor stores, which also include Sears and Filene’s, are not under contract with the mall’s owners, Kravco Inc., to maintain specified hours, said Pamela C. Fritz, district property manager.

“They can, at will, change their hours,” she said.

Some do that, but not to close early. Instead, they may stay open later for special sales events.

Fritz admits that many families, made up of two working adults, find the evenings to be hectic. There’s dinner to prepare, homework to do, and other routines that eat up valuable time.

Mills said his family is one of them.

“When you have two people working … I come home. I’m tired. So is my wife. We don’t go out at night,” he said.

But sometimes families choose to go to the mall, Fritz said. Closing earlier wouldn’t help them.

“The whole retail experience is to make the stores and the environment so it is convenient to everyone,” Fritz said.

Mills, however, said he can keep an eye only on Porteous’ retail environment.

“I think Kravco would have hoped we hadn’t changed our hours,” he said. “It’s one of those things that I know that I’m not comfortable with. But I would like to be open-minded – we’re going to do this and hope it’s going to work.”

Changes in attitudes

Wal-Mart – which Mills considers “the new department store” – has gone through the same changes in shopping dynamics that Porteous now is facing. It has noticed that the stores no longer can tell customers when they will open and for how long. Customers do that, and Wal-Mart has responded by telling store managers to set their own hours based on community standards.

“In the last 10 years, it’s been quite prevalent that it’s not the retailer dictating the hours to the customer,” said spokesman Keith Morris. “It’s the customer dictating the hours to the retailer.”

But comparing Wal-Mart’s operations to those of Porteous would be like comparing apples to oranges, he said. Porteous is a department store. Wal-Mart is a discount retailer. The shopping environment is dramatically different.

Wal-Mart is the place people rush in and rush out of before or after work, Morris said. It sells electronics and “anything that you can imagine,” but it’s primarily the site for customer staples – Q-Tips, shampoo, deodorant, shaving cream.

“Diapers, for example. You pick them up when you need them, after work or late at night,” Morris said. “That necessitates for us when we stay open.”

It’s the sales of clothing and housewares by Wal-Mart or any other discount retailer, though, that is hurting department stores, Mills said, and changes need to be made by department stores in order to stay viable.

“Any merchant who doesn’t recognize that will be left in the dust heap,” he said.

During the last several months, Porteous has been studying several department store chains that have been able to compete against Wal-Mart and other discounters. Mills hopes their philosophies can be applied at Porteous.

The regional manager said he hopes Porteous will be giving customers “more of what [they] want.” That will mean a change in the way its operations are set up inside the store. It also will mean changing some of its merchandise lines, so that customers will not find the same clothing there as they would in Filene’s, Sears, Penney’s or any other store in the mall.

“I’m not going to cut our quality,” Mills said. “We need to be more of an August 2001 merchant and less of a traditional merchant.”

Low price and merchandise sales are what Ken and Debra Bourgoin of Topsfield said directs them to certain stores. Shopping with their son, Brandon, on Saturday at the Bangor Mall, they acknowledged that Porteous generally is not a store they visit.

“To be honest, that’s one of the places I stay away from because their prices are pricier,” Ken Bourgoin said. “It’s like Filene’s. I stay away from Filene’s because of the price.”

Mills said he has heard comments like that before.

“We don’t have to be Filene’s,” he said. “You already have one. We’re going to be Porteous in Bangor.”

When told of the possible changes, Bourgoin said, “I think that would make a difference.”