A slightly goofy aesthetic is back in style.The Bean Boot dates back to 1911, when brand founder Leon Leonwood Bean sold his Maine Hunting Shoe, which the Bean Boot descended from. Legacy products are hot right now. Consumers - especially millennials - connect to the product's history and bulletproof track record.Why are the 100-year-old boots so popular? There are a few reasons: "Without changing anything, they're back in style." Bean spokeswoman Carolyn Beem told last year.
"They're all over college campuses and high schools," L.L. The Bean Boot has been in constant production for 103 years - with very little change. The company will hire an additional 100 staff to bring the total Bean Boot factory staff to around 600 - double what the staff was just three years ago. Bean will be leasing a new factory to complement the existing two, and it will invest in another $1.2 million injection molding machine that forms the rubber bottom of the boot. "The boots have been hand-sewn in Maine by our own skilled boot workers, and they always will be."Īs part of its new plan to meet demand, L.L. "We realize we could outsource, but that will never happen," McKeever told Bloomberg last year. Part of the reason for the backlog is the shoe's "it" status, combined with its laborious manufacturing process - which, for many of the boot's components, is still done by hand. It's just crazy, and I've never seen it like this before." People are waiting, and we want to please our customers. Bean bootstitcher Diane Lavallee told The Boston Globe last year, when the waitlist stretched to 50,000 people. Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. Overstock or year-old product does sometimes go to the outlets, but Bean Boots produced this summer would have gone into stock for this fall.” “However, at one point there were limited quantities of boots at some of the outlets – they were not first quality. “We had backorders through the year,” the rep said. However, a rep for the retailer says the availability wasn’t a result of excess production last year. Bean outlet in Lake George, NY just a few months ago. “We are doing our best to keep up with demand, but there are a few styles and sizes that will show a backorder at any given time this season,” a rep for the company tells Consumerist.Īlthough summer months aren’t exactly the time when consumers are shopping for winter boots, a Consumerist staff member recalls seeing a lot of boots available at an L.L. Bean’s websites shows several varieties of the company’s Original boots are already on backorder, some listing an estimated availability of late January.Ī similar situation played out last year, when the company - despite hiring 100 more workers - put the shoes on backorder.
However, those increases come with a few hiccups. “They’re gravitating to the past and anchoring themselves into it,” Willie Lambert, Bean’s merchandising manager for footwear, tells. While other brands have seen revived interest in the past, only to be brought down a peg when the novelty wears off, L.L. “Teenage girls in Malibu are not always going to be wearing L.L. “There can be times when true classics become trendy,” Dan Hess, CEO of Merchant Forecast, an independent research company, says. The renewed popularity of the boots is part of a larger resurgence in the “what is old is new” mantra, reports. In fact, sales of the boots have increased from less than 100,000/year a decade ago to an estimated 600,000 this year. Bean to revamp its production processes, but those efforts haven’t yet done the trick. Now, the long-time retailer is once again putting some styles on backorder, despite increasing production, hiring additional employees, and making plans for a larger facility.ī reports that a sense of nostalgia and a desire for functional winter footwear has caused Maine-based L.L. Nonetheless, the popular footwear was quickly put on backorder. Bean hired 100 additional workers to ramp up production of their iconic, unglamorous USA-made duck boots. bean duck boots backorder shopping retail popularity nostalgia 11.28.16 5:11 PM EDT By Ashlee Kieler backorder boots l.l.
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