What does the Bealls of the future look like?

BRADENTON -- Bealls Inc. will not slow down as it heads into its 101st year.

The Bradenton-based retailer's department stores, outlets and online presence will undergo changes in the coming years. Many of those are already taking place.

Overall, Bealls will see smaller stores and an increased online focus. Both the outlets and department divisions will go after younger shoppers in-store, while looking outside of Florida to expand.

The most noticeable change will come later this year when Bealls launches an upscale boutique called Bunulu.

Company executives are still weighing options for the department stores and when to execute a variety of plans.

The Bealls department store of the future will likely be much smaller than the 80,000- to 100,000-square-foot stores of today. Company executives figure that new stores will likely be in the 30,000- to 40,000-square-foot range.

"I think department stores are going to be smaller than we

had been opening for awhile," Bealls Inc. Chairman R.M. "Bob" Beall II said. "We've been opening 100,000-square-foot stores, and I don't think there's any need in the longer range for 100,000-square-foot stores."

The layout of the stores will change in the coming years. Bealls Department Stores President Lorna Nagler is in the process of creating a new layout that doesn't focus on segregating the shopper by women's, juniors or petites and instead, organizes merchandise that complements a lifestyle. That's meant to help the customer visualize what they could do with an outfit or why they need a new color.

The smaller format and refreshed look could also lead to Bealls finally opening department stores outside of Florida.

"It's not at the top of my list, but it's on my list," Bealls CEO Steve Knopik said.

The company came close about 10 years ago, but opted to invest in online retailing as the recession bit into the department store industry. Bealls believes department stores will open one day in coastal cities in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and other Southern states. But the company is not actively pursuing that strategy as the outlet stores are dedicating expansion outside of the state.

On board with online

All parts of Bealls Inc. should see an increased dedication to online retailing.

BeallsFlorida.com is still trying to figure out the ideal online shopping experience, but executives say the site is successful, with about half of sales coming from outside of Florida.

It is a key investment for the company, but one it hasn't totally figured out. If Bealls' online presence can keep going, the company chairman would like to see "a few hundred million dollars in sales."

Knopik knows how difficult it is to keep up in the online marketplace.

"E-commerce is a very challenging business," Knopik said. "I think if you look at some of the businesses considered leaders in that area, you'll find including Amazon that it requires a lot of capital and investment because the whole technology field changes so rapidly that profitability has yet to be fully harvested."

The online strategy also means figuring out how to interact with customers in sending them offers and explaining products.

Apps? Special mobile and tablet stores?

Knopik said the company will dedicate the resources necessary to make Bealls competitive online.

"I think a player like Bealls, our interest is in continuing to invest and evolve or customer experience online with all the kinds of things customers expect," Knopik said.

For Bealls, its play is to improve customer experiences online where the customer can expect it and tofind ways for shoppers to learn and buy products from any device, whenever they want. And much like Amazon, Beall won't give up on trying something new to please the customer.

"I'm not too interested in making a profit yet. Depending on how you look at it, we may be making a small profit," Beall said. "It just doesn't matter. The thing that matters is to build it into something significant."

For the outlet division, it will focus on making sure BurkesOutlets.com has a successful online store.

Burkes Outlets, a sister store of Bealls Outlets in certain states, launched an online outlet store late last year as Bealls' first experiment in selling off-priced goods online.

The outlets have an inherited industry challenge in that they can't sell everything they have in the bricks and mortar store online.

"We know that the off-price business is somewhat challenging when it comes to the online world," said outlet president Dave Alves. "In our environment, we love to deliver great brands and we deliver great fashion. However, our promise and our commitments to our vendors is that we're not going to tell anyone that we have those brands overtly."

If Alves and his team can find a working solution, the Burkes online store could be brought to BeallsOutlets.com.

Younger, brighter outlets

Bealls Outlets and Burkes Outlets are in the midst of their stores of the future.

Two years ago, Alves launched a redesign of store layout and reducing inventory while increasing the variety of products in addition to tweaking the stores' logos.

Now that the cosmetic changes are out of the way, Alves is changing the product mix to have young families shop at the outlets while still keeping his senior and snowbird shoppers.

"I felt in looking at the business that we had a strong relationship with the customer, but I felt that they really wanted more from us," Alves said.

"They were willing to give us more business. There was a broader customer we could have gone after. Some of those elements of inventory were actually detracting us from doing those things."

Alves is in the middle of testing a juniors plus-sized department, wants to test a men's big-and-tall department, and recently launched a baby, toys and kids' shoes department in some stores. Other departments, such as home goods, received better-known brands, too, such as KitchenAid and Calphalon.

Alves' goal is to create a perfected prototype store and bring that to 40 to 50 stores in the next three years, while also opening 20 to 30 new stores a year for the next several years in its 14-state territory.

This story was originally published March 7, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "What does the Bealls of the future look like? ."