80 DC VELOCITY MARCH 2018 www.dcvelocity.com
AT THE TIME, IT MADE GOOD BUSINESS SENSE. LOOKING
to make a clear and bold statement about the quality of his wares,
Leon Leonwood Bean launched a company with a lifetime product replacement policy. The then-humble enterprise, primarily a
manufacturer of the now-iconic rubber-soled hunting boot with a
unique chain-link tread, established itself as a mail-order catalog
company in 1912 when Bean sent a mailer to out-of-state sports-men touting a new hunting boot design.
His pledge was immediately put to the test,
and a return policy that would last more than
a century became a hallmark of his company,
L.L. Bean. Of the first 100 pairs of hunting boot
orders he filled, a full 90 were returned when
the tops and bottoms of the boots began to
separate. Bean refunded the money, corrected
the problem, and the rest, as they say, is history.
That is, until last month.
The venerable Freeport, Maine, manufacturer and purveyor of outdoor clothing, footwear, and equipment announced it was ending
its 106-year-old no-questions-asked lifetime
return policy. The reason seems simple: A few
bad actors ruined it for the rest of us, according
to an open letter to customers from L.L. Bean
Executive Chairman Shawn Gorman.
“Increasingly, a small, but growing number of customers [have]
been interpreting our guarantee well beyond its original intent,”
He was being kind.
