Harold Alfond
| Harold Alfond | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | March 6, 1914 Swampscott, Massachusetts |
| Died | November 16, 2007 (aged 93) Belgrade, Maine |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | High school graduate |
| Occupation | Founder of Dexter Shoe Company and philanthropist |
| Known for | First factory outlet store |
| Spouse(s) | Dorothy Levine |
| Children |
Ted Alfond Susan Alfond Bill Alfond Peter Alfond |
| Parent(s) | Simon & Rose Alfond |
| Relatives | Justin Alfond (grandson) |
| Website |
Maine Notables from maine.gov |
Harold Alfond (March 6, 1914 – November 16, 2007) was an American businessman who founded the Dexter Shoe Company and established the first factory outlet store.
Alfond was born in Swampscott, Massachusetts, on March 6, 1914, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants Simon and Rose Alfond. Harold, his brother David, and four sisters, Anne, Bertha, Gladys and Grace, grew up in Swampscott and attended Swampscott schools. In high school, Harold was an outstanding athlete and developed his passion for sports.
After graduating from high school in 1934, Alfond got a job at Kesslen Shoe Company in Kennebunk, Maine, where his father worked. In a short time, he rose from odd shoe boy to factory superintendent. In 1940, Alfond and his father bought a shoe factory in Norridgewock, Maine, and founded Norrwock Shoe Company. They sold the company to Shoe Corp. of America in 1943 and Alfond stayed on as president for 25 years.
In 1956, Alfond left, purchased an old woolen mill in Dexter, Maine, and founded Dexter Shoe Company. There, he produced shoes for the private label catalog market, supplying stores such as Sears, JC Penney, Spiegel, and Montgomery Ward & Co.. Although Dexter was successful from the beginning, Alfond tired of being controlled by a few large customers and decided to go into the "branded" business. He developed a line of shoes under the Dexter name, hired a sales force and began selling to independent shoe stores across the country.
Alfond is often credited with the invention of the factory outlet store. Because factories make mistakes, not all shoes come out as first grade. The mistakes are called FDs (factory damaged). The practice in the industry was to sell these FDs to jobbers for about a dollar a pair, who would then resell them for five times their cost. Alfond thought that was a pretty good mark-up, so in the 1960s he opened an outlet store at Dexter's Skowhegan factory and started selling his own FDs. Soon, the factories weren't making enough mistakes to supply the store, so Harold decided to put in stale inventory (first grade shoes that weren't selling in the wholesale market). This worked so well that Dexter's log-cabin-style outlet stores started popping up on all the heavily traveled roads throughout New England. Other manufacturers caught on to the idea and as Dexter put up new stores, other manufacturers would open their outlets next door. By the 1990s, the Dexter Factory Outlet chain had expanded to over 80 stores. About this time, Dexter also stopped building freestanding log cabins and began leasing stores in outlet malls.
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