Talk:L.L.Bean

Picture of the original building needed

• Page needs an image of the old, original, 2-story, wooden, L.L.Bean store.E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:58, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Serious problem.

Why dont we have a page for the MAN "Leon Leonwood Bean" We need his biography, all attempts return to this company page, even a full fill out of his name Leon Leonwood Bean! Cindy Flynn (talk) 10:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Spelling

Their website always spells their name "L.L.Bean" with no space. I see that redirects to "L. L. Bean" right now which itself talks of "L.L. Bean". Which is right? I'm tempted to make everything have no space, consistent with the company's spelling. —Ben FrantzDale 14:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Spelling should follow the rules of English, because this is the title of an article - it isn't a company logo. Spaces after periods are the way English works, with the frequent exception of two initials in a row (like L.L.). I guess the rule it's following is actually "always set off the family name by a space, and capitalize it". We should follow that rule. Besides, the company puts a space in the text of the catalogue - not the artsy logo, but the actual words. - DavidWBrooks 15:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree we should go by their text not their logo; I just see "L.L.Bean" in their HTML text on their web page; I don't have a paper catalog in front of me. —Ben FrantzDale 13:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

As a current L.L.Bean employee, I'd like to comment on the proper spelling of the company's name. The name of the company is properly spelled L.L.Bean. Both Ls are capitalized, there is a period after each, but there are NO spaces. The only time it is proper to see L. L. Bean written with spaces is when one is referring to the man L. L. Bean: The company's founder. I hope that this explanation is helpful to anyone else who may have questions. Jjmche 04:38, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. —Ben FrantzDale 05:43, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a total advertisement for Bean

Not encyclopedic in tone at all, feels like it was written by their publicity director to me! Just saying. Songflower (talk) 04:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Historical Place in Maine

L.L.Bean store does not need advertising, and as a former Maine resident the place has always been a special place worthy of the National Register of Historic Places. and as such a discussion of the evolution of the store is valid IMHO Pabobfin (talk) 18:35, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Has closed four times

I believe the store has closed 4 times. The two dates mentioned for the blue laws, the funeral of the founder and that store got evacuated due to a fire next door in late 80's. Tried to find a reference to the last two but all I found was just mentions in passing. maybe someone else can look at this. Thanks. --12.152.0.169 (talk) 02:33, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Another closure not mentioned was 9/11/2001, but my only source is an unknkown employee at the store in question. Paulec252 (talk) 02:08, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Company name (again)

Bean's flagship store

The flagship store in Freeport, Maine, proudly displays a space between "L.L." and "Bean".

Looks like I'm not the only one tripping over inconsistencies in how the company spaces its name. I'm not here to advocate one form over another; I just want to learn how this ambiguity arose. If the company name has evolved over time, that history would certainly make for an interesting section in the article.

Despite the lack of public SEC filings, I was able to dig up some hints:

• Legal name registered to the Secretary of State of Maine: L. L. Bean, Inc. [1]
• Legal name recorded by court documents: L.L. Bean, Inc. [2]
• Trade name promoted by company website: L.L.Bean [3]

My casual encounters with third-party sources suggest the most common form is L.L. Bean. This is also the form I prefer, personally. Both, perhaps, stem from conventional usage in English.

I modified the first sentence in the lead to include the information I found. If you have additional evidence, help complete this story. Whether you touch the article or not, please drop a note here.

No matter which name you prefer, this much should be clear: Don't change the title of sources. This can happen to the article when an overambitious editor search-and-replaces one form of the company name with another en masse. Because source titles can give clues to the name commonly used at a specific time, I restored our current sources back to their original titles. Let's safeguard what information we have. —Cheng ✍ 10:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC) [Edited 09:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)]

Copyright violation

Most of the section Company History was copied from a brochure posted on the company website, L.L.Bean - Our Story. For legal reasons Wikipedia can't contain copyrighted text so I have removed it. The material would a useful as source for writing the history. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:45, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Product name problem?

I seem to recall there are differences between the "Bean Boot" and the "Maine Hunting Shoe". Something about the soles of the latter being more flexible, also the uppers of a differently tanned leather. The boots are named differently in the Bean catalogue. Rudy Rassendyll (talk) 21:40, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

General article reccomendations

• Article could use more background on the company (i.e. has won many awards for being great place to work) • “Product line” section could use more detail, especially around the Signature line of apparel • I am not sure why the partnership with Subaru is under “Product line.” This may fit better in a new section about partnerships. • The “Retail and Outlet stores” section is outdated. There are a few more added on the L.L. Bean website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Farley.ty (talk • contribs) 17:17, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Economic boycott weaponized

An entire section is needed. Wikipietime (talk) 15:57, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Disagree - and the section should be removed, and will be done when I finish TP. A pretentious boycott call, by a singular citizen that has seen no actual ramifications for an employee's personal and private donations on a company page is engaging in a witch-hunt. This section's inclusion is an attempt to publicize and get others to boycott. LL Bean itself has no political activity. The barely filled section claims of "assertions", not facts. Additionally, Wiki editors have not allowed negative impacts from Trump's attacks on a company/corporate page,therefore, any negative impacts from attacking through Trump should not be included. In fact, New Balance's page also makes mention of attempts to boycott for perceived support of Trump. However, actual effects as noted in the NYT source, that happened to Lockheed Martin and General Motors are noticeably absent from their pages. It can't be both ways here, ignoring pro-Trump favorability or increase in visibility/sales, but plastering ineffective and muted calls for boycott as a heroic principle. Seola (talk) 15:36, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Cleaned another attempt at putting in the boycott, which, more now than ever, shows it's uselessness in inclusion. Not only was it a private person with a private donation, it had quite literally no economic impact on LL Bean, positively or negatively. Singular, unknown people cannot make a call against a company, with no results and it be noteworthy. Seola (talk) 17:57, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I added newer citations. Has remained in news longer than thought. LL bean even had to make notye when sales were fglat if this was related, they did not deny it. that citation was also added. 173.66.244.194 (talk) 22:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

2015 vs 2016 Revenue

I added back the Decrease notification to the revenue as both LL Beans notices show they had a small decline from 2015 to 2016 per http://www.llbean.com/customerService/aboutLLBean/images/160428_company_fact_sheet.pdf and https://www.llbean.com/customerService/aboutLLBean/images/FactSheet_2015.pdf Since these are their own documents and nothing else disagrees this seems correct per other pages and Wikipedia's guidelines. ContentEditman (talk) 01:13, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Decrease from 2015 to 2016?

We have one source that says that revenue was $1.61 billion in 2015. We have a separate source that says that revenue was $1.6 in 2016. It is my belief that we cannot call that a decrease, because we don't know if the numbers actually went down, or if they just decided to round to one decimal place instead of two. If that's what they did, it could have gone up as high as $1.649 billion. Since we don't know why the significant digits were different between the sources, it is WP:Original research to draw conclusions about which way revenue is going. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:15, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

You seem to be trying to make it sound like they are different sources, they are not. They are both from LL Bean directly. If they show there was a decrease its not for us to add a different take on it or assume anything other than what the references say. If these references were from different sources then yes I would agree rounding could be an issue. But corporations are under legal liability if they mis-state their revenues. So there is no reason for LL Bean to adjust how they state their revenue in their own reports and we should not add/take anything away from how they are presented. ContentEditman (talk) 17:47, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, they are both from Bean, but they're general "About this company" flyers, not formal revenue reports. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:24, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

If a company releases false financial information they can be sued for that. Why would they change the way they themselves release their own information? We should not include any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources. WP:Original research The references clearly show there was a decrease from 2015 to 2016. ContentEditman (talk) 21:10, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

But you are the one drawing the conclusion, so the error is to put decrease in, not take it out. You are making the assumption that the numbers are rounded the same way in both informal reports. 1.61 to 1.60 is a decrease. 1.61 to 1.5 is a decrease. 1.61 to 1.6 is not something you can draw any conclusion from.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:07, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

I am not assuming anything, I am reading them as they are. You are the one coming up with rounding yet have not backed it up at all other then your own synthesizing conclusions with nothing to back them. What do you have to support that the numbers are not accurate? ContentEditman (talk) 22:14, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm not saying that they're not accurate, I'm saying that given the number of significant digits we're given, we cannot draw that conclusion from them. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:22, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes you are, you came up with this long winded thing of rounding but have nothing to back it up. You are edit warring when the references don't support what you want. That violates WP:Original research. We are only reporting exactly what LL Bean themselves reported, no more or less. ContentEditman (talk) 22:30, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

"1.61 billion" means somewhere between 1,605,000,000 and 1,614,999,999. "1.6 billion" means somewhere between 1,550,000,000 and 1,649,999,999. Saying that it definitely decreased when it could have gone from 1,614,999,999 to 1,649,999,999 is incorrect. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:35, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Do you have anything to show that the references used rounding other than your own analysis or synthesis of published material, aka references? You keep making these claims but have not provided any support and what you are posting does not match the references. ContentEditman (talk) 22:39, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

subhead title

Changed from "political activity" to "Attack by political activists" because the section makes clear that the corporation was not involved, but, rather, that political activists started a Bean boycott because of the political activities of a single board member.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:44, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

That wasn't even close to NPOV. Changed it to "Political controversy" - more neutral, and that way, if something else comes up, it fits under the same heading. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:48, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree with SarekOfVulcan. That was way over the NPOV line. I prefered the previous "Political activity" but "Political controversy" is still better than the other. ContentEditman (talk) 01:20, 13 September 2018 (UTC)