LL Bean's Parker

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by James L. Martin

I still wear 16" Beans, here I am with a grouse ,20ga Trojan and 16" Beans in Maine

James, I love it! Keep it up.

[Bill Jolliff]

I got the Bean boots pictured below in January of 1972 so I've had them 51 plus years.

They are on their 4th set of bottoms that I had Bean put on about 8 years ago. They offered me a new pair instead. Like an old friend, I preferred to keep the old tops and just replace the bottoms.

I've been pretty happy with them.

Bill

[stumpstalker]

1) all hunting boots are just like the best of boats, a compromise. My Maine Hunting shoes, bought in 1971, repaired and resoled for cheap money a couple of times, are still useful to me for some applications, but not so much for hunting.

2) in the old store one might see a piece of paper thumb-tacked to vertical surface describing a special feature of a product written by hand, signed "L. L. Bean", and plausibly done so by L. L. himself.

3) Even today's Filson catalogue will display hunting clothing without any gun in sight. I gave up on seeing a gun in Bean's catalogue long ago.

4) I admit to buying casual clothing from L. L. Bean today, as it sometimes offers what I want and can't find elsewhere.

[Alfred Houde]

I still wear Bean Boots during the muzzleloader deer season. To me they are light, quiet, and like wearing moccasins.

But agree that they are useless on ice, wet rocks, etc.

I find myself wearing these for most of my hunting now. Le Chameau boots. The only thing I have had to replace is the carry bag.

[Harold Pickens]

Beans boots were worthless on these Appalachian hill sides, a sure way to break the stock on a fine double.
Air bob soles were my favorite on these slippery slopes, but hard to find these days.

[Garth Gustafson]

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.

[Reggie B]

Garth thank you for your very informative and detailed response. I think it sheds some much needed light on LL Bean and its commitment customers. Being an executive team leader for a regional company in the Southeast I understand the challenges of maintaining and motivating salespersons. It is a tough job, especially in today's business environment.

[Dean Romig]

Thanks for the additional information Garth.

The situation that I related when I contacted Bill Gorman (and he solved the problem quickly) was the result of myself soliciting donations for the PGCA Silent Auction and the lady who haughtily rebuffed me was in fact the head of the Customer Relations Dept. She quickly changed her tune after her reprimand from above initiated by Bill. Hopefully she was put into a remedial retraining program.





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[Alfred Houde]

My wife is a manager within a regional-chain supermarket. Her most reliable employee is an 81-year-old, who continues to work to "keep his brain engaged."

She has told me countless stories of younger employees who quit after one day, quit during the day, or go through the whole interview and background check hiring process and never show up for their first day.

Sign of the times, I'm afraid.

[Researcher]

In the old days my family was very into the 16-inch Russell Ike Waltons.

1936 Russell Ike Walton ad.jpg

There was an old pair or two around the house, but everybody was wearing 8 to 10-inch boots by the time I started hunting. I found a good condition pair of Ike Waltons in my size at St Vincents and wore them a few times but that was a lot of lacing!!