Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Seat belt bag makers set sights on stores

Dana and Melanie Harvey, the husband and wife team behind the sturdy seat belt handbags that bear their name, plan to open their own stores after almost a decade of relying on other retailers.

They envision 50 stores within five years. The first 1,200-square-foot store will open in Santa Ana in January 2007 across from Westfield MainPlace.

By 2008, the Santa Ana company plans to open stores in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York, Florida, Illinois and Texas. It may also look for partners to help it launch shops in Australia, Japan and Korea.

The company will keep more profits from sales in its own stores because it's eliminating the middleman. Now, Harveys and other wholesale companies sell to retailers for one price, then the retailer marks up the bag to sell to customers. With its own stores, Harveys will pocket the retail markup as well, providing extra money to pay for store overhead, Dana Harvey said.

To reach its goal of 50 stores, the company recently hired Joe Citizen who hails from Gap. Citizen's last role at Gap, where he worked for a decade, was to improve sales at stores that did not meet revenue expectations.

The business expansion will come next year when the company celebrates its 10th anniversary.

In 1997, the first seat belt bag was made from belts Dana Harvey was ready to scrap after pulling them from a Buick he was restoring. Melanie Harvey asked him to make her a bag, and he stayed up all night, crafting the bag from a flax basket weave technique he learned from his grandmother when he was a child.

The company went on to launch a clothing line in 2003 that it discontinued in 2005.

"We decided to just focus on handbags because we saw greater potential there," Dana Harvey said.

Last December, they expanded their core business by creating seat belt diaper bags after the birth of their baby girl, Marilyn.

Come Oct. 15, the company will relaunch its Web site that will require shoppers to click less on the mouse to make a purchase.

And in January, it plans to launch a luggage line, which fits into its accessory-theme business, Dana Harvey said.

He's also talking to eyewear maker Initium in Costa Mesa which sells its products at Nordstrom. He would like to work with Initium designers to come up with a line that reflects Harveys' woven look.

"I don't like the idea of just licensing the Harveys name to a company to produce whatever they decide," Dana Harvey said.

All these expansion plans are why new sales boss, Citizen, decided to work for this small company.

"I see the potential growth at Harveys," he said.

Source: ocregister.com

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