Houndstooth Sales Up 16 Percent in December

Houndstooth Clothing Co. of Fayetteville had a 16 percent increase in same-store sales during December, said Michael Baker, who started the retro T-shirt company in 1992. Overall, he said, annual sales for the entire company were about the same as in 2000, which the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal estimates to be about $2 million.

Baker shifted gears in 2001 in light of the slowing economy. Six Houndstooth locations were open during December 2001, compared to 11 the previous December.

Houndstooth operates a permanent retail store in a building in downtown Fayetteville. The rest of the company’s retail locations are in mall kiosks, allowing Baker to open, close or move them easily to other locations. Baker targets holiday sales by opening kiosks in some locations in the fall and closing them the following January.

The company has five mall locations that Baker considers permanent. Those are in Fayetteville, Little Rock, North Little Rock, Fort Smith and Jonesboro. In fall 2000, Baker opened a kiosk in Wolfechase Gallery, a mall in Memphis. That location was reopened for fall 2001.

With the slowing economy, Baker decided not to reopen kiosk locations in four cities: Jackson and Tupelo, Miss.; and Nashville and Chattanooga, Tenn. Those kiosks were opened for the first time in fall 2000. Although sales were good in those cities and likely would be better the second year, Baker decided to curtail the operation mainly because of geography.

“It was hard not to go back into those locations,” he said. “We did well, but I didn’t feel like we had control of them. It was hard. I felt like I was leaving money on the table. Memphis made sense because you can get in your car and drive there in five hours.”

Baker said he may reopen the kiosks in the Mississippi and Tennessee malls next fall, depending on the economy.