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John Koutsos is not one to wear his politics on his sleeve, but if Bob Dole is looking for a store to symbolize his "bridge to the past," he might try Alec's Shoes in downtown Nashua. When store President John Koutsos says, "Shoes have always been in our family," he's not just saying that none of his ancestors went barefoot. Koutsos is the 35-year-old son of Alexander Koutsos, who started the store with his father in 1938. Alexander's brother, Charles, had a shoe store, Charles K. Shoes, in Manchester. The Charles K. store is no more, but Alec's has not only survived, it has prospered through an era that has seen the demise of most independent shoe stores. (excerpt)
John Koutsos is not one to wear his politics on his sleeve, but if Bob Dole is looking for a store to symbolize his "bridge to the past," he might try Alec's Shoes in downtown Nashua.
When store President John Koutsos says, "Shoes have always been in our family," he's not just saying that none of his ancestors went barefoot.
Koutsos is the 35-year-old son of Alexander Koutsos, who started the store with his father in 1938. Alexander's brother, Charles, had a shoe store, Charles K. Shoes, in Manchester. The Charles K. store is no more, but Alec's has not only survived, it has prospered through an era that has seen the demise of most independent shoe stores.
"The independents that are left are probably getting stronger," said Koutsos, "but there are not a lot of independents left." Through nearly six decades in Nashua, Alec's has changed locations two or three times, but its loyal customers keep coming back, with new ones added to the fold. Now it is arguably the anchor store in downtown Nashua, filling the former Miller department store in the heart of the central shopping district.
"There's no (in downtown Nashua) store bigger than ours," said Koutsos, who moved two years ago into 50,000 square feet in the Main Street store and an adjoining building on Pearl Street. That move put the shoe seller "right on the 50-yard line" of the downtown shopping grid. That makes it easy to find, but when Alec's was further down the street, at 100 Pearl, generations of shoppers still found their footwear there.
"We have a lot of customers who were coming to our store as children and are now coming in with their kids and sometimes their grandchildren," said Koutsos, who started helping out at the store in his junior high and high school days. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire Whittemore School of Business, taking over the family business seemed like a natural career path. He's been at it for more than a decade and it hasn't bored him yet.
"I think it's an interesting field. Sometimes you're almost like a psychologist to the customers. You hear and deal with everything. You deal with lots of personalities."
And lots of shoes. Walk into Koutsos's store, and you get the impression that if Imelda Marcos couldn't make heaven, she would want to spend eternity at Alec's Shoes. The large store is filled with shoes of every kind--dress shoes, athletic footwear, hiking boots and sandals. There are so many shoes, you couldn't count them all. Neither, apparently, can Koutsos.
"We're not computerized," he explained, citing one of many ways in which the 58-year-old store goes against the grain of modern retailing. Koutsos has nothing against modern technology, but he doesn't lose sight of his priorities.
"You can get bogged down with computers and end up spending more time in front of a computer screen than with your customers," he said. Besides, he might be hard-pressed to find room for a computer in his tiny office. The store currently occupies about 20,000 of the available 50,000 square feet, but only 63 of them (7 feet by 9 feet) are for the president's office. Koutsos doesn't want to get too comfortable there.
"We try to keep the administrative part of the business to a minimum," he explained.
Attention to price, quality and service has enabled the store to meet and beat the competition, Koutsos said, despite the number of chain stores and factory outlets that offer convenient alternatives to downtown shopping.
There are all kinds of stores specializing in athletic footwear (MVP Sports, Sports Authority, The Foot Locker, The Athlete's Foot) as well as men's and women's dress shoes. Large department stores, like Sears, Filene's and Lechmere, have their own shoe sections. Koutsos estimates that in Nashua's Pheasant Lane Mall alone there are about 20 places for people to buy shoes. That hasn't hurt business at Alec's
"Since the mall opened in 1986, our rate of growth has increased," he said. One reason is that Alec's is one of the few traditional "family shoe stores" around. A mother getting her children shod with their favorite athletic shoes can find some stylish footwear for herself and perhaps a pair of shoes for her husband on the same trip. The store offers "one-stop shopping" for the family's feet, Koutsos observed.
That means having a lot of inventory--something else that goes against the grain of one of the pet theories of modern retailing. "We've had people walk in and tell us to consolidate, shrink inventory and free up a lot of cash," Koutsos said. "We have a much larger inventory than most retailers, but you really can't sell empty shelves."
And it's not good enough to tell customers you can order it for them, he said. There are too many other places they can go.
"Maybe 50 percent (of orders) turn into actual sales. We work hard to make the sale when they come in."
That's especially important at Alec's, whose customers often travel long distances to get there. Shoppers from Lowell, Lawrence and other parts of northern Massachusetts find their way to the downtown Nashua store, as do Monadnock Region residents from Peterborough and Keene. One reason they keep coming back is that they find familiar faces there. Helen Dabilis has been an Alec's employee since "before I was born," said Koutsos. Other employees have been on board for 30 years or more. "We have people in their early thirties who have already been with us 10 or 12 years," said Koutsos. The store offers profit-sharing and a generous health plan, he notes, adding that "taking care of our staff" is a tradition that ranks right up there with taking care of customers at Alec's.
The store "has a personality of its own," said Koutsos. "The chains can't establish that, because they can't keep their help long enough to have a consistent face behind the register."
Koutsos has seen his share of "consistent faces" and new faces on both sides of the register, but the one that interested him most came into the store several years ago. He got to know the personality that went with it, and before long they were talking about more than her size and style of shoe. They began seeing each other regularly, and last year John and Diane Koutsos were married.
His wife is a flight attendant with Northwest Airlines and understandably looks for comfort as well as style in a shoe, he said.
"A flat, comfortable, casual shoe," said Koutsos of his wife's choice of footwear. "Probably a Rockport."
Koutsos seems comfortable with the family business, seeking and getting counsel from the store's founder, 78-year-old Alexander Koutsos.
"He still checks in every morning and helps out," he said of his semi-retired father. "He's not afraid to stay on top of things." Given the abundance of space at the current location, Koutsos thinks the store's moving days are over for the foreseeable future.
"We're a mature business," he said. "We're not looking for another location." And while the store has a history, as well as a personality of its own, Koutsos is not about to get lost in the past. He describes himself as a "fiscal conservative" who "leans toward the Republicans." But the way he views his store might fit Bill Clinton's description of the "bridge to the 21st Century."
"We try not to think of history too much," Koutsos said. "We like to look well into the future."
Copyright Business Publications Inc. Oct 11, 1996