The Parker with the bent stock on display in the Hunting & Fishing department is the DH 20 ga (206188) once owned by LL Bean and now owned by LL Bean, Inc. As the story goes, LL acquired this gun sometime in the late 1930’s when he lost vision in his right eye. He was right-handed and had the stock bent so he could shoot with his left eye. LL intended to use this 20 ga on ducks and it was bored tight. He was afraid of injuring his good eye so he selected the 20 gauge for its lighter recoil. About 1940, LL went down to Boston for eye surgery where he met and later married his second wife Clair (his first wife, Bertha had died in 1939). When LL died in 1967, the gun was passed on to his grandson, Leon A Gorman who was Chairman of the Board for 40 years and on his passing in 2015, the gun was left to LL Bean, Inc. LL’s Remington Model 8 is also on display in the store.
I’m reading these posts with some interest as I’m working for one of the LLB retail stores in my retirement and can comment on some of these less than stellar experiences you guys described at the Freeport flagship store. I can assure you that this company is 100% committed to customer satisfaction. LL Bean, the founder started the company with a simple philosophy of offering quality merchandise at fair prices and providing superior customer service. That remains the heart of our core values. The company solicits customer feedback on every transaction (in-store, web, or phone order), customer feedback and product reviews are strongly encouraged and taken very seriously. Quick story, a couple years ago, this was before I worked for them, I sent in an honest but rather scathing review on one of their hunting vests I had purchased on-line. I received a reply and by the next year they corrected what I thought was a pretty serious design flaw, and they made the necessary improvements to the vest to make it more functional and water resistant. I see design improvements like this all the time on the products we sell in the stores and that’s because the company values, solicits and acts on customer feedback. In fact, Newsweek just recently named LL Bean the top outdoor apparel retailer based on customer satisfaction (beating out Orvis, Patagonia, North Face, Duluth Trading and others).
Regarding the negative experiences in the flagship store, these are inexcusable and are not tolerated. If that ever happens, please ask to speak with a store Leader on the sales floor and he/she will work with you directly to resolve any issue. I guarantee every problem like this that happens on the sales floor is addressed and corrected but we have to know about it. The company’s reputation is simply too important to allow things like this to happen. I’m not making excuses for salespeople (I'm one of them), but keep in mind that most of our retail workforce consists of young part-timers earning $16/hour and more than 50% of them are seasonal hires. In my opinion, LLB does a good job screening, hiring, training, motivating and mentoring their retail salespeople but managing turnover and retaining good people in a retail environment is always a challenge. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is in retail.
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