L.L. Bean employees to receive bonuses Outfitter saw surge in sales last year

FREEPORT – Outdoor goods outfitter L.L. Bean plans to give bonuses to its employees based on their annual pay after a 9 percent increase in sales last year lifted annual sales to a record level.

The Freeport-based retailer said 4,700 employees will get bonuses totaling 12.5 percent of their annual pay after the company reported sales last year of $1.4 billion.

For an average customer-service or sales representative, the bonus amounts to about $3,300, said Rich Donaldson, Bean’s spokesman. Another 5,600 seasonal workers will get $150 cash awards. The bonuses will be paid on March 25.

Bean officials said 2004 was the second consecutive year the company had a strong increase in sales despite a highly competitive retail market. Bean outperformed most other retailers in its category of clothing and outdoor goods, said Walter Loeb of Loeb Associates, a retail consulting firm in New York. The company entered the new year with solid sales due to harsh winter weather.

Chris McCormick, Bean’s president and chief executive officer, said the company mailed a record 290 million catalogs in 2004 to capitalize on the troubles of two chief competitors, Lands’ End and Eddie Bauer.

Lands’ End has been struggling to find its place since being purchased by Sears, and Eddie Bauer’s parent, Spiegel, has been mired in bankruptcy proceedings for two years.

“We were being opportunistic,” McCormick said. “We think there’s an opportunity in the marketplace with what’s going on with Bauer and Lands’ End to grab market share.”

The strategy ran counter to Bean’s hopes to garner a higher percentage of its sales from retail stores to balance out its catalog and Internet sales channels. McCormick said the storefronts still performed well, with same-store sales up 7 percent.

McCormick said Bean’s performance validates the company’s plan to upgrade a factory store in West Lebanon, N.H., to a full-price retail store this year and add two stores in 2006 and three in 2007.

McCormick said Bean is also considering opening more stores the size of its flagship store in Freeport in the future. Bean also expects to announce a new call center in Maine, the company’s fifth, he said.