Business Spotlight: Springfield Leather Company

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by Laura Scott|ret||ret||tab|

SBJ Contributing Writer|ret||ret||tab|

sbj@sbj.net|ret||ret||tab|

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Surviving the ups and downs of 20 years in business involves creativity and taking risks. That's the formula successfully used by Kevin and Becky Hopkins, owners and operators of Springfield Leather Company.|ret||ret||tab|

"Whenever sales started to go down, we would come up with a plan," said Kevin, who along with his wife, daughters Molly Duran and Lindsey McMahon, son-in-law Chris McMahon and 12 other employees work at the wholesale, retail and mail-order company. Most of those plans have succeeded, with Springfield Leather just completing its best year ever with $1.8 million in sales.|ret||ret||tab|

The store specializes in leather and beads and stocks the supplies needed for either craft. Shoppers can buy specialized home dcor items, hand-made pottery and boxes, rugs, Native American music, leather coats and a variety of gifts. Classes are offered in leather crafts and bead making.|ret||ret||tab|

Molly's extensive collection of beads and stones is a treasure chest for crafting beaded jewelry. "We have vintage German glass beads, diachronic stones and hard-to-find glass beads," Molly said. "We also keep a huge assortment of bone, stone and glass available." In the three years since Molly opened the bead department, sales have soared.|ret||ret||tab|

The beads were added after the Hopkins family bought the Springfield Tandy Leather Company store in 1999. Tandy was closing its chain of stores.|ret||ret||tab|

Tandy Leather's Springfield location opened in 1961 in the Country Club Center on South Glenstone Avenue, selling leather and leather-working tools and accessories. Kevin began working with the business after moving his family to Springfield in 1983. "I first became interested in leather crafts in 1972," he explained. "It started when I was a hippie in a rock and roll band. My guitar strap broke and I decided to make one."|ret||ret||tab|

After Kevin took over the management of Tandy, it became the company's largest volume store. By the late 1980s, the Southwest trend started coming to an end. "Sales started to go down," he recalled. "We came up with two plans. One worked and one didn't. One plan was to promote leather crafts through hospitals for occupational therapy. The other was to appeal to incarcerated people by offering mail order."|ret||ret||tab|

Orders started flowing in from inmates, who purchase the supplies to make leather goods at the prisons. "I sent out flyers and a letter. I made the inmates an offer they couldn't refuse, and I told them that we would never take advantage of them because of their circumstances. That month I got five orders," he said.|ret||ret||tab|

Each month the orders coming in would triple. "Within a year, we had 300 inmate customers that we never had before. The following year, we had 1,000. Now we have 8,000 to 10,000 inmate customers across the U.S. in federal, state and private institutions. The inmate business has done nothing but grow."|ret||ret||tab|

The store itself has grown as well. The Hopkinses have tripled their floor space, doubled their showroom and now own five units in the Country Club Center. "We have a huge selection of leather alligator, stingray, ostrich hides, silver fox and exotic leathers. We have lots of finished products like purses, moccasins, motorcycle apparel and volcano jackets stuff that you can't buy just anywhere. We have a lot of home dcor stuff, books and videos. Our real strength has been leather common leather like cow, deer, elk, pig, garment and upholstery leather," Kevin said.|ret||ret||tab|

Kevin estimated that about 35 percent of the business is from local shoppers. The remainder of the business comes from mail, catalog and Web site orders. |ret||ret||tab|

It isn't unusual for Springfield Leather Co. to fill hundreds of orders in a day. "When we first started the prison business, it grew so fast it caught us by surprise," said Kevin. "We'd get 150 orders in a day and could only fill 30. In the early years, at one point, I was four weeks behind in opening mail orders." |ret||ret||tab|

They managed to work through that time. "Everyone that works here is self-motivated," Molly added. |ret||ret||tab|

The Hopkins family is self-motivated as well, which is why the business continues to grow. In 1999, when Kevin and Becky bought out the company, they brought a leather work business on board that had been operated out of the family garage for years. |ret||ret||tab|

"We did leather work at our house to pay bills. Times weren't that good then. We had three kids to raise," he explained. "After I worked for Tandy during the day, I'd come home and work at night, making a bag or wallet to sell. At that time I came in contact with Silver Dollar City. They would buy handmade wallets. In the early 1980s, I was the guy that made them. We got good orders."|ret||ret||tab|

Kevin bought a garage full of exotic leather scraps from a Justin Boot Factory in Cassville, borrowing $2,000 on his credit card. "The next day, I sold 2,500 wallets in Branson," he said. "It took us two weeks to make the wallets by hand. We got flat busy after that. To make the work go faster, we had somebody make cutting dyes for us so we wouldn't have to use scissors to cut."|ret||ret||tab|

That venture and the family got so busy the decision was made to take on a partner. "We expanded into Oklahoma. We got so busy that in 1983, we set up shop in my garage," Kevin said.|ret||ret||tab|

"As it grew, we got the opportunity to buy sewing machines and other stuff from a shoe factory in Monett that was going out of business. We bought a clicker press a week later." Then came a belt embosser and handmade belts were added to the product line. "We got so busy, my partner quit and we went on our own," Kevin added.|ret||ret||tab|

They also made leather purses and sold as many as 4,500 in Branson in one day. It all added up to $250,000 in sales from the family garage.|ret||ret||tab|

"We enjoy it," said Kevin. "With the exception of one son, the whole family works here. We print our own catalog and flyers and maintain our own Web site. We had a huge sales gain here last year, and we anticipate that we will continue our growth."|ret||ret||tab|

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