Business Spotlight: Town & County Inc.

Owner: Bob Lowe

Founded: October 1957

Address: 2660 S. Glenstone Ave. in Brentwood Center, Springfield, MO 65804

Phone: (417) 883-6131

Fax: (417) 883-7271

E-mail: townandcounty@sbcglobal.net

Products: Men’s and women’s upscale retail clothing

Employees: 18

Upscale retail clothier Bob Lowe has a theory:

“One suit sold doesn’t pay the light bill. If you help a customer properly, politely and professionally, they’ll become a regular customer, and our regular customer is what pays the light bill.”

That philosophy coupled with top-notch brands has more than kept Town & County Inc.’s lights on for 50 years.

The Town & County story began in October 1957 when Ray Forsythe and Bill Pettit opened the retail-clothing institution in Springfield’s Glen Isle Center. Forsythe brought Lowe on as a partner in 1969, when Lowe was finishing his Master of Business Administration at Missouri State University and managing a division of Barth Co., another upscale Springfield retailer.

When the Battlefield Mall opened in 1970, Town & County moved right in.

“You would have been looked at as being nonprogressive, nonsuccessful if you hadn’t,” Lowe explains. “That was the biggest thing to happen in Springfield back then.”

As a result of customer requests for front-door parking, Lowe moved the store in 1992 to its 9,800-square-foot location in Brentwood Center.

Classy customers

Lowe describes Town & County’s customers, ranging in age from 25 to 65, as being interested in quality, fashionable clothing, personalized one-on-one service or wardrobe guidance.

Sally Hargis, vice president of Ozarks Coca-Cola/Dr Pepper Bottling Co., buys her clothes primarily at Town & County. She began her association with the store when she was a gift-wrapper there in high school.

“Personal service is important to me,” Hargis says. “It saves time, and I believe it saves money, because I can be up-to-date in fashion and still be able to make wise investments.”

Town & County makes its investment in staff. Sales employees are full time and receive benefits such as 401(k) plans and medical and dental insurance. As a result, the shortest-term employee of the 18 on staff has been there seven years, and some employees have worked there more than 35 years. Sales employees also attend training opportunities offered by manufacturers. Lowe recently returned from Chicago, where he completed a professional selling workshop offered by Hart Schaffner Marx University, run by the apparel maker by the same name.

“You get to where you trust them with helping you out and putting clothes together,” says veteran shopper Nick Sanders of New Horizons Computer Learning Centers about Town & County’s sales staff. “They’ll be honest and say it doesn’t look good if they need to.”

By request, Town & County also offers customers in-home wardrobe analyses, digital photos of how outfits are put together for home reference, in-house charge accounts, free gift wrapping and a loyalty points program.

Big on brands

Town & County brands for men include Lacoste, Cole Haan, Zanella, Tommy Bahama and Burberry, for which they are the exclusive retailer in Springfield. For women, the store carries Garfield & Marks, Elliott Lauren, Lacoste, 7 For All Mankind and Michael Stars lines.

Lowe says buyers attend markets in New York City about seven weeks out of the year. They also visit Chicago and Las Vegas twice a year.

David McIntyre, an independent sales representative for Burberry, has been working with Town & County for nearly 17 years and says the store is one of his top 10 accounts. Burberry items that McIntyre supplies Town & County include suits retailing for $895 to $995, shirts for $165 to $185 and ties retailing for $120 to $135.

Town & County has experienced double-digit sales growth each of the last six years, Lowe says without disclosing store revenues.

Three years ago, Lowe and his son, Bobby, opened another store two doors down in Brentwood Center. Aptly named 2 Doors Down, the retailer at 2672 S. Glenstone Ave., reaches another younger, fashion-forward men’s market. Bobby Lowe, who with one employee sells premium denim clothing out of the 900-square-foot space, says 2 Doors Down has experienced 25 percent growth annually since opening.

“Initially, our customers were just a lot of children or family of Town & County customers,” Bobby Lowe says. “Now, I would say that 90 percent of my customers don’t even know what Town & County is.”

The elder Lowe, 62, says he’s beginning to plan his exit strategy, while planning to keep Town & County alive.

“It’s the owner’s responsibility to plan down the road,” he says.[[In-content Ad]]