Nov 12, 2007

Out of the Way Is A-OK for These RetailersBy TheLedger.com

Lake Wales | In the retail world, an age-old real estate slogan is the oft-quoted mantra: Location, location, location. Retailers pay premium dollar for high-traffic areas, choosing to cluster with other retail stores in malls and strip shopping centers. So how are retailers in out-of-the-way places making ends meet? Three Polk County businesses say they offer a unique product, concentrate on quality, make the store a destination and use unconventional methods of marketing.

“Our location is an advantage and a disadvantage,” said Tom Wales, owner of The Barn, located four miles north of Lake Alfred, on County Road 557, near Interstate 4. “We are a destination store. People have to drive some distance to get here. But, then again, the people who get here want to be here.”

Wales said being surrounded by horse farms and the Green Swamp has endeared customers to his family’s unorthodox, fourth-generation approach to running a business.

Word-of-mouth advertising and good customer service is what drives sales in the country setting where Wales and his family violate all traditional rules of marketing. They never advertise. They maintain only a simple Web site so people can get directions and just recently they started an e-mail list, but only as a courtesy to their customers.

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