-By Jennifer Strailey

Before Larry Oates opened his KitchenArt store in West Lafayette, Ind., he made a list. The list was two-part, including both businesses that Oates — an attorney looking for a career change — would be interested in developing and businesses that he believed his Big Ten college town community needed. After careful consideration, “kitchenware store came to the top of the list,” recalls Oates, who opened KitchenArt: The Store for Cooks in February 1994.

Both Oates and his wife had attended Big Ten colleges, and when the pair was ready to start a family, they decided to leave the big city life of Chicago — where Oates was practicing law — and settle down in a Big Ten town. West Lafayette, home to Purdue University and about an hour’s drive from Indianapolis, offered everything the couple was looking for — including an opportunity for an independent housewares retailer in the making.

Oates taught himself the business, attending his first International Housewares Show in 1994, and opening the 2,500-square-foot KitchenArt store that same year. Two-and-a-half years ago, the savvy independent retailer expanded to become the 4,000-square-foot destination for cooks it is today.

Among the many benefits of life in a Big Ten town is a comparatively resilient economy and steady job base. “Our community has not been hit nearly as hard by the recession because of its background in academia,” notes Oates. “Schools are usually big employers and they don’t tend to have the layoffs that you see in other industries. Most businesses in West Lafayette are research and development focused, which still goes on in an economic downturn.”


And KitchenArt enjoys a rather enviable location in the thick of it all. Situated in a strip mall of other retail shops and restaurants, the store lies at the entrance to the 650-acre Purdue Research Park, which is home to more than 100 high-tech companies that employ some 2,500 people.

Ten Big Ideas
So, how does KitchenArt get these highly desirable professionals through its door and back again for more? In honor of Oates’ Big Ten background and inspired list-making, we bring you 10 of his smart strategies for successful housewares retailing.

1. Make Dough With Cooking Classes
“Our cooking classes do phenomenally well,” says Oates. For the past five years, the retailer has sold out nearly every class offered. Even earlier this year, at the worst of the economic downturn, all classes from February to June sold out with the exception of eight seats. “Cooking classes are about as ‘disposable income’ as you can get, and our customers are still spending money on them,” observes Oates.

Class registration occurs in the beginning of February and then again in mid-July — two historically slow times in the housewares retail business. Customers pay for the classes upfront, and Oates uses the influx of revenue to even out cash flow in not-so-hot sales months. KitchenArt’s cooking classes also spur additional sales, as Oates offers attendees a 10 percent discount on anything in the store — including electrics. Sale items, gift cards and cooking classes are the only exclusions.

The cooking class schedule and registration is promoted in the store’s bimonthly e-newsletter and additional e-blasts one day before and the day of registration. KitchenArt outsources class registration and seating to a bonded ticket registration service, so Oates can focus on lining up the best chefs and making sure his inventory supports the class themes. “You can offer all the classes you want, but if you don’t have the products to go with them, you’re doing yourself and your customers a disservice,” says Oates.

And while some retailers are content to use cooking classes as a marketing and advertising vehicle for their business, Oates is adamant: “Cooking classes are the purest form of dinner theater, and you have to be there to make sure that everything goes off the way it should. They’re a lot of work, and I wouldn’t do them if they didn’t make money.”

2. Get Grandma in Your Product Assortment
KitchenArt offers a strategic breadth of tools for cooks. For example, customers will find nearly a dozen garlic presses among the store’s 120 linear feet of tools and utensils. “When someone comes in looking for a tool that grandma used to use, that’s what they want,” asserts Oates. “They don’t care if there’s a better tool for the job. Consequently, we try to offer breadth. We show them the best tool out there, but we don’t want them walking out the door because we don’t have what grandma used for the job.”

3. Find Your Signature Product
While KitchenArt offers some 40 types of bulk coffee, it’s the retailer’s trademarked Boilermaker Blend™ that has customers continually coming back for more. Oates describes the blend as a chocolate flavor base with a hint of spice. He sells 10 pounds of Boilermaker Blend for every 1 pound of other coffee sold in his store. The special blend has become the store’s signature gift item. KitchenArt offers prepackaged bags of the bulk coffee with the store address and contact info to ensure repeat business.

4. Become a Destination for Something Big or Small
Sometimes, being a cookie-cutter operation is a good thing — or, in the case of KitchenArt, a great thing. From day one, Oates has offered a staggering assortment of some 450 different cookie-cutter shapes. “The investment is not that high, and when you consider revenue per square foot, the cookie cutters pay for themselves,” explains Oates. These little $1.29 gems draw in anyone and everyone who likes cookies — and who doesn’t? Of course, once in the store, shoppers are tempted by a full assortment of cookie pans, parchment paper and other baking essentials.

5. Identify a Need; Then Fill It
KitchenArt carries small appliances, bulk coffee, coffeemakers, tea and coffee accessories, books, tools and utensils, cleaning supplies, staple specialty foods, bakeware, cookware, wine accessories, textiles, scales, cutlery, a small selection of tabletop items, and — more recently — an extensive selection of cake-decorating supplies. When KitchenArt opened, another store in town already specialized in cake decorating. Years later, that store closed, creating an opening for Oates, who says it’s all a matter of listening to your customers’ needs. “Cake decorating is a growing area for us. Wedding cake and cake decorators in general were underserved in our community,” he notes. “They needed a supply house because they didn’t want to warehouse everything themselves,” continues Oates, who is more than happy to be the town’s cake decorating supplier.

6. Respond to the Times
Oates listens to his customers, and what he heard this year were concerns about the recession. He responded immediately by researching the best housewares with a retail price of $20 or less, and bringing in what made the most sense for his store. “People are buying down — not in terms of quality, but in terms of average sales going down,” he explains. The expanded inventory of products under $20 “really served us well,” notes Oates, who adds that while “large-ticket items are not moving out the door nearly as fast as the smaller-ticket items,” sales are steady thanks to all of the smaller items that add up to a profitable business.

7. Be a Vital Member of Your Community
KitchenArt’s Boilermaker Blend is not only the store’s signature gift item, it is also the retailer’s main charitable contribution. “We sponsor any worthy cause with coffee,” says Oates. The donation supports the community and introduces a new audience to KitchenArt’s exceptional coffee. As an active member of the community, KitchenArt also keeps a close eye on the needs of organizations like 4H, which Oates says is a major force in the Midwest. KitchenArt stocks the housewares supplies that young 4H’ers are going to need, drawing them and their parents into the store.

8. Reach Out and Touch Someone — a Lot
Oates is a big believer in targeted advertising, with frequency. “You have to touch people seven to eight times before they act on it and come into your store,” he says. “Running an ad in the local paper once a week is not good enough,” says Oates, who sees cable TV as the radio of this century, averring he “lives on the food channel” with advertising. It allows him to reach his target audience of people who enjoy cooking, so much so that they’ll sit down to watch entire programs devoted to the subject.

9. Communicate With Your Customers
Once you get a new customer, says Oates, you’ve got to keep them with regular communication. His content-rich newsletter, which goes out twice a month, has received numerous accolades from shoppers looking for trusted tips and information about cooking. And just as Oates intelligently outsources his cooking class ticket sales, he also outsources production and distribution of his newsletter. Having a professional newsletter customized to the product assortment of his store means Oates and his staff can stay focused on the heart and soul of the business — their customers.

10. Brand Your Store
The other thing that is extremely important, notes Oates, “is to brand your store.” He purchased a radio jingle back when he opened his store that still rocks his advertisements. His advice to retailers just getting started in the business: Lock in a terrific logo and/or tag line now, and then stick with it. KitchenArt is “The Store for Cooks.” Who can compete with that?