Reprieve: Lenox outlet store to remain open on a seasonal basis

Dec 30, 2008 (The Free Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- LENXE | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- The Lenox Outlet Store on Dobbs Farm Road is still scheduled to close Jan. 15, but company officials are considering a seasonal schedule that could let the store re-open in July and at Christmastime each year.

Bret Rattray, Lenox Group Inc. chief marketing officer, said Monday that while company officials will not make a final decision for several months, there is a "high likelihood" Lenox will find a way to open the store on a periodic basis.

Rattray said a decision was originally made to close the store completely because of the low revenue it generated. Lenox, a maker of fine china based in Bristol, Pa., is looking for ways to reduce expenses after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year.

"Not enough people go into that store at a frequency high enough to justify it being open all the time," Rattray said. "But if we have it open on a more concentrated basis, we feel it would be much more cost effective to bring traffic."

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According to Rattray, Lenox would have to see a "big time increase" in sales in order to keep the store open.

"We lose money in that store," Rattray said. "Probably a 50 percent increase would start to get us into the range that might be reasonable."

The Kinston store opened in 2000 and currently employs seven people. Rattray said he did not know how many would remain employed if the company opts to open seasonally, but the company's experience with a Lenox outlet store in New Jersey -- which is open six to eight times a year -- leads him to believe very few workers would experience downtime.

"People look forward to it opening," Rattray said of that store. "There are lines waiting to get in when it opens and we even need crowd control sometimes.

"We'd hope we could do something like that down there."

The seasonal scheme would rely heavily on billboards and other forms of publicity, Rattray said, to let travelers passing through Kinston know when the store was open. He cited high costs of advertising in Eastern North Carolina as a reason for considering opening the Kinston store two times each year.

Paul Leichtnam, manager of the 400-employee Lenox China plant in Kinston, said while he suggested to corporate officials to keep the store open part-time, the community also played a significant part in convincing Lenox to reconsider its original plans.

He specifically credited MaryMac Ritch, wife of Kinston Mayor Buddy Ritch, with grabbing the attention of Rattray.

Ritch joined Pride of Kinston Executive Director Adrian King, Kinston Rotary Club President John Marston, the Lenoir County Board of Commissioners and the Kinston City Council in touting the importance of the store to Kinston in terms of tourism and commerce.

"I just did what everybody else did, but I might have been the first one," Ritch said, explaining that she felt it would take too long to wait for officials to draft letters to the corporate headquarters. "I picked up the phone right away and called (the two contact numbers contained in an e-mail sent by King asking for residents and officials to contact the office)."

Rattray said Ritch was the first of several people to contact him regarding the store's closing.

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