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Welcome to the Arthur's Department Store.
After being locally known for thirty-five years we have now gone global! Enjoy this selection of footwear and fashion here on the web or when in Vermont stop by the store to browse our full inventory. We are just ten miles north of Stowe in North Central Vermont. We offer a benefit for our customers, you can place the order and pay for it online and simply pick it up at our store, located on Main Street, Morrisville, Vermont. Layaways available in store.
New this year, check out the new educational products from Melissa & Doug available at our store.
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News
At Your Service
Arthur's Department Store relies on small town trust
By Lisa McCormack
Stowe Reporter
Theresa Breault isn't your typical department store owner. You won't find her behind a desk giving orders to a team of sales associates of tallying profits on a computer screen.
Most days you'll find the Brooklyn native in the women's section at Arthur's Department Store in Morrisville. She's enthusiastically greeting customers, helping them carry their selections to the dressing room and thanking them for stopping by when they leave, even if they didn't buy a thing.
Her husband, Arthur Breault, is also a hands-on business owner. Even virulent staphylococcus infection he contracted this spring during a trip to Egypt and Jordan didn't slow him down much, despite landing him in Copley Hospital for 14 days and confining him to his home since May.
He simply turned his kitchen table into an office, communicating with his staff by phone and faxing inventory orders to wholesalers.
The Breault's have owned Arthur's Department Store for 35 years.
It is the only independently-owned department store left in Vermont.
Its last remaining competitor, Homer Fitts in Barre, closed its doors last year.
The Breaults have no plans to retire or close the store. Ask them how they've stayed in business for so long and they point to three factors: great customer service, good employees whom they train and treat well; and, being unafraid to change business practices to meet the changing needs of customers.
That's not a bad business plan, considering the couple had no retail experience when they moved from Connecticut, where Arthur worked as an engineer. They purchased their first business, a department store in his hometown of Richford, VT, in 1969.
The store proved to be a good training ground.
'I call it my on the job training,' Arthur said.
Disappointed by the stores performance, however, they were set to close shop and move back to Connecticut when they were approached by Louie Ferris Sr., who owned the Gillen's Department Store building in Morrisville. The store had recently closed and Ferris wanted the Breaults to take over the lease.
They closed the Richford department store, and signed a lease on the Morrisville store, and hired a New York company to completely redesign it.
'It was a different look. We wanted to put our own touch on it,' Theresa said.
They formed a corporation, Breault Enterprise, and opened the store as Arthur's Department Store in May 1972.
By 1975 business was booming and the Breaults purchased the building from Ferris along with two stores that flanked it on wither side. They expanded the main store to create one building.
Changing with the times
When Arthur's opened, Morristown was largely a farm community. Theresa estimates that half of their customers were farming families.
'Back then we had two basic products,' she said, 'Men's work boots and jeans.'
The store's inventory has changed over the years to keep pace with changing fashions and changing lifestyles.
'The needs of people were different then,' Arthur said. 'People dressed up a lot. They're more causal today.'
Shopping patterns have changed, too.
'Today's shoppers are more impulsive,' Arthur said. 'Years ago, people bought according to what they were doing with the clothes. Now it's more about buying a certain color outfit because they like it.'
The store sold a lot of gowns in the 1970's, mostly hand selected by Theresa, including bridal gowns and mother-of-the-bride gowns.
'You knew your customers,' Theresa said. 'You knew what they would but. We sold a gown every week to someone.'
The store updated its merchandise blend I the 1980's, creating a casual wear line.
Today, the store has clothing for the entire family. There's the men's department with business suits and casual wear, and the women's department with everything from lingerie to casual wear, out-door wear and more formal attire. The children's department offers baby clothes, fun kid's outfits and school uniforms. And there's a shoe department where you can find sandals, sneakers, dress shoes and boots.
Service Counts
Years ago, a department store could succeed simply by offering products that couldn't be found elsewhere. Today's global economy has changed that, making it easy to find almost anything with a trip to the mall or a click of the mouse.
The Breaults say that it's their focus on customer service that allows them to successfully compete with larger retailers.
'It has been everything to us,' Theresa said. 'We greet all of our customers, most of them by name. We try to make our customers feel important.'
Theresa will special order an item for a customer or call a customer when something she thinks they'll like comes into the shop.
'It's my endeavor to make people feel more beautiful going out than they felt when they came in,' she said.
The Breaults train their employees to offer the same level of service.
'Our people are not on commission, so they don't hound people,' Arthur said. I'd rather have them lose a sale than compromise good service.'
The trick is to be able to size up the customer quickly.
'You have people who want customer service and those who want to shop on their own,' Arthur said. 'There's a lot of psychology in retail.'
Theresa sometimes takes good customer service to the extremes.
She has been known to let customers borrow up to eight pairs of shoes and slippers to bring family members who are in the hospital. She simply tells them to come back the following day to return the ones that don't fit and to pay for the rest.
'People in the hospital deserve the same quality and service as someone in the store,' Breault said.
And then there's the story about the woman from out of state who wanted to buy a coat.
She tried three coats on and the third one fit her perfectly,' Theresa said. 'Her husband was waiting outside in their car so I told her to run out and model it for him. He couldn't believe that I had let her out of the store. He said, 'She could have jumped in the car and driven off without paying for it.''
The women bought the coat.
'If you treat people with honesty they respond honestly,' Theresa said.
In addition to taking care of their customers, the Breaults have also been active in their community.
Arthur had been a member of the Vermont Relaters Association since 1977 and been a trustee for the organization for almost as long. Theresa is a justice of the peace and sits on the town's development review board.
Holding onto good employees
While many clothing retailers struggle to attract and hold onto employees, there are no 'help wanted' signs in the windows of Arthur's Department Store. The store employs 11 people and they tend to stick around for a long time; one has worked there for 30 years and another for 10 years.
When a female customer walked into Arthur's show department on a recent Saturday, manager Desmond Culcleasure eyeballed her foot and correctly guessed her size.
'Size six, right?' She smiled as he slipped into the stockroom and reappeared moments later to hand her the shoes and make sure they fit.
Culcleasure has worked at Arthur's for 10 years. Of everything the Breaults had taught him, and they've taught him a lot, he readily admits two lessons stand out.
'Product knowledge and respect for the customers. That's the most important thing,' Culcleasure said. 'You have to know what you sell and treat your customers right.'
Born and raised in the Bronx, he says the respect and trust the Breaults have given him, along with the family atmosphere of the store, keep him rooted in Morrisville.
He frequently travels to Boston and New York with Arthur to attend trade shows and learn different aspects of the retail clothing business.
'I have the opportunity to buy for the store,' Culcleasure said. 'If I worked for a big store I wouldn't get to do that. I'd just be a shoe lackey.'
Employee Jeff Moser has managed the store's men's department since 1977. Most days you'll find him helping men select shirts or suits that fit just right or tactfully giving advice on color coordination.
It's not unusual for him to keep the store open late to accommodate a customer's schedule or to rush a suit that a customer has ordered for a funeral to the tailor and hand-deliver it to the customer's home.
He's formed the tight bonds with the Breaults and his other coworkers over the years.
'The store is small and close enough that you get to intermingle with people socially, not just at work,' Moser said. 'It's an extended family.'
Not afraid of the competition
When Arthur's Department Store Opened in 1972 there were six other clothing stores in Morrisville, including a dress shop that stood where the shoe department is today. Today, they are all long gone.
'You always have competition,' Arthur said. 'When it's not the other store, it's catalogs or the internet.'
'In the beginning the Sears catalog was a big competitor. Everyone had one.'
The rise of the chain and big box retailers and discount stores in Chittenden County and the opening of Ames in Morrisville in the 1980's and Peebles just last year didn't detract from business; it just made the Breaults conduct business differently.
'It didn't hurt us,' Arthur said. 'It made us sharpen our pencils and be more on our toes and make some changes (in inventory) to meet the changing needs. You need to change to meet the changing times.'
Repeat business is the backbone of the store's customer base. Some are locals who have been shopping there since the store opened; others are visitors who put the store in their vacation itinerary.
The store continues to evolve to fit the changing needs and shopping habits of its customers. Though the Breaults admit that their knowledge of computers and the internet is minimal, this summer they launched a store Web site, www.Arthursdepartmentstore.com. Now, they list 225 items on the site and they plan to expand their offerings.
Some changes have been more difficult that others. Theresa sighs when she recalls the first season that she didn't go to the fashion trade shows to hand select her gowns for her customers, because they were no longer buying them.
'I remember when I told Arthur that I wasn't buying gowns for the ladies department. He said, 'You're not?' He couldn't believe it.'
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