PHILADELPHIA -- Whenever I’m on the road, I enjoy hitting the newsstand to pick up the local city magazine. One of the best is Philadelphia Magazine. In town this week for the Perennial Plant Association’s 26th annual symposium, I was pleasantly surprised to see Philadelphia Magazine’s July issue carries a lengthy profile of Dick Hayne, the guy behind the newly opened Terrain at Styer’s, along with Urban Outfitters (132 stores), Anthropologie (113) and Free People (19).
Here are some take-home points from the article:
- When Hayne wryly describes his job as “the business of pleasing women,” he’s kind of joshing, but he’s also quite serious. For 38 years, Hayne has made a career out of quietly observing and ingeniously responding to the needs of the country’s most influential shopper: the affluent upper-middle-class woman.
- At first, he observed women his age, women in his social circle. As he grew older, when he and the women in his life no longer fit the demographic, he did it by hiring new women -- and men -- who fit and understood his customers’ profiles.
- With his new title of president and chairman, Hayne is in big-picture mode, looking for new concepts like Terrain, which has a simple premise: Attract the Mercedes Benz-driving women, show them a lifestyle they identify with, keep them wandering for an hour, maybe two, and watch sales go through the greenhouse roof.
- Out-of-the-box locations make his customer feel like she is experiencing something unique. “It’s kind of a labyrinth,” one analyst said. “You keep walking through, delighted by each turn. … You feel like you’re discovering little things.”
- When he’s not cultivating his retail, Hayne is trying to cultivate his tomato plants. “One of the most wonderful parts of gardening is, if you came to my house and you saw a certain plant, and you said, ‘Where did you get that?,’ I’d actually want to tell you,” he says. But you’d definitely have to ask. “I can’t toot my own horn like that.”
Believe me, tongues are wagging at the PPA symposium over Terrain. I’m going to take a drive out to Chadds Ford later this week to have a firsthand look. I’ll be sure to pass along some photos and my thoughts on the place.
-- Kevin
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