Customer Reviews

In Search of L.L. Bean

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Not an award-winner as a biography or even as a corporate history, but a worthwhile read all the same. I picked up a copy on a whim at a used bookstore and was pleasantly intrigued enough to finish the whole thing. Uncovered here are the habits and quirks of Leon Leonwood Bean, his stereotypical New England lifestyle and business philosophies, and the challenges the mail-order company faced from his death in 1966 to the time of this publication in 1985. The most surprising -- and yet somehow, not totally unexpected -- fact that the reader takes away is the contradiction of the company mystique and the demographics of its typical customer. It's rural Maine versus East and West Coast suburbia. Wearers of the Maine Hunting Shoe or the chamois cloth shirt are more comfortable hunting for their kids on the soccer field sidelines or fishing for compliments at the local country club watering hole. And their buying habits changed not only their status quo but also the daily life of residents of Freeport, Maine. Marketing students may therefore find the latter chapters more interesting than the beginning biographical ones. Maybe one of them will continue the study and write an up-to-date version of it, since L.L. Bean, Inc. is obviously still finding ways to survive.

This is an interesting book,though the writer didn't appear to have access to enough information about LL Bean.I found the book repetitious at times.