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From the current print issue of NHBR
NHBR Article
Newport family’s stores flourish with a winning retail formula
Friday, October 24, 2008
By Pete Spanos
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When the Hubert family settled into Newport in 1972, they found a home they sensed could bring them personal happiness. They also brought with them a heritage and master business model where future generations could prosper.
Family clothiers now for four decades, their handiwork is a string of storefronts grown to six from a flagship Newport beginning. Locations in Claremont, New London, West Lebanon, Woodsville, Vt., and a newly minted Peterborough store that opened in August, are run firmly in the black and under the same ethic.
“Always the best for less,” said Guenter Hubert, 53, the Brooklyn-born eldest son of company founders Thomas and Hannelore Hubert. “That’s our long-running slogan. That’s how my parents began the store, and that’s how they left it to us.”
Today, as the growing company approaches $10 million in annual gross sales and a staff of up to 100 employees, depending on the season, that linkage remains unmistakable.
German immigrants, the elder Huberts sought New Hampshire for a quieter American life than the one they arrived at on post-war Long Island in 1953. After nearly 20 years working in and around New York City, the couple read a New York Times ad selling a “five and dime” store in Newport, N.H. They purchased what was then a dry goods operation on the town’s main street and hung out their shingle.
“The city was just getting too crowded for my parents,” said Hubert, present in the first years and now partnered in operations with his wife Kathy, 45, and younger brother Thomas Jr., 44. “They wanted a place to raise a family and start a business, with more open spaces and a different sense of community.”
Early success came as no accident. The elder Thomas, now deceased, had been a longtime retailer in Germany, where he and his wife ran a profitable corner deli and developed the strict attention to personal service they brought stateside.
“We’ve always operated with three goals in mind,” said Hubert. “To offer people the products they need, to provide the best possible customer service, and to get involved in the civic and recreational life of our community. We’re solidly blue-collar. We sell brand names for a discount. We don’t build fancy, upscale stores. We’re just mainstream merchants and our stores look a lot like what we sell.”
Hubert’s nucleus is a 5,000-square foot-warehouse and corporate office facility skirting the Newport/Sunapee town line. Nothing lands on store shelves before being checked there.
“We never got carried away with our overhead,” said Hubert. “We’ve always kept expenses reasonable and this has helped us weather the tough times and economic interruptions, like today. We’ve always lived and acted modestly to create a cushion in which we could survive.”
According to Hubert, abrupt economic changes in the early 1980s first tested the family blueprint.
“This was around the time some of the bigger stores moved in - Ames, in particular,” said Hubert. “We lost 20 percent of our business overnight, and with my parents moving into their retirement years we decided we needed to evolve and find a different niche - or pack it in. My father always liked quality, and he was willing to pay for better merchandise. The larger chains were catering to the low-quality end of the spectrum, so we became that true middle-class store."
Branching out
Outside forces also aligned to help this evolution. Sullivan County commissioners wanted the storefront and bought the shop’s lease in 1984, enabling the outfitters to relocate to a larger Main Street location. Business soon increased 20 percent, allowing Thomas and Hannelore to retire in 1985.
By the end of the decade, young Tom, formerly in construction, was co-managing operations and helped lead the transition to multiple stores. In 1989, a competing Army/Navy store in neighboring Claremont shuttered its doors and provided the family with its first opportunity for growth.
“We had a very loyal customer base from Claremont,” said Hubert. “We wondered if we were better off opening up there and losing 20 percent of our business in Newport or hesitate, and end up competing with another store entirely.”
The move proved to be a shrewd one, meeting the demands of a customer base throughout the valley that was expanding with the business. After Claremont, came New London, in 1991, then Woodsville, Vt., in 1995, and West Lebanon in 1998.
In addition to men’s merchandise, Hubert is responsible for all corporate and financial matters. Where he once manned one or more stores for a full day, the corporate office laptop allows the Newport Middle-High School soccer coach more time with his seven children.
Tom, who lives in Newport with his wife Stephanie and their four children, handles select men’s lines, footwear and the maintenance of all the facilities. A self-described “soccer widow,” Kathy oversees human resources, ladies’ and children’s merchandise and a $150,000 advertising budget that includes print, radio and television.
Many store managers and front office workers have been on the payroll for over a decade.
“The hardest thing about growing was delegating responsibility,” she said. “But we wouldn’t have six stores if we didn’t find people from the communities to help run them. We know they have families who depend on them for these jobs and we try to treat them like family.”
Hubert said the idea of opening the new Peterborough store came to the couple as they drove through Peterborough while traveling to Leominster, Mass., for meetings with representatives of the Columbia Sportswear Company, a signature Hubert’s line.
Hubert said the state’s labor and demographic Web sites, and meetings with local chambers of commerce, are useful when researching the addition of a new store. After the decision, he said, it’s back to the basic formula.
“We’re still finding out what we need to do in Peterborough,” he said. “It’s a new region for us, but over the next few months we hope to identify what our customers need and what they would like us to carry. And the next few years are going to be interesting for us in general. We’re always looking for opportunities, and now appears to be a particularly good time to keep our eyes open for retail space, given economic uncertainties.”
According to Hubert, “my father taught us that clothing is the commodity people need most after food. The iPods can be bought another day, but the kids always need clothes and shoes for school.”
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