The shop is called Seaview Outfitters, and its 25-year-old owner and operator, Steve Thomas, seeks to combine an amicable customer service experience with brand-name outdoor apparel and merchandise including Columbia, Patagonia and Vineyard Vines.
The retail shop offers clothing and outdoor resources for everyone, Thomas said. General lifestyle pieces can be purchased by the casual community-goer, but die-hard outdoorsmen can also find more technical equipment.
“Seaview Outfitters — we like to call it an Alaska-inspired outdoor lifestyle store,” Thomas said. “We truly have something for everybody.”
The story of the retail shop has its roots in Hope, Ala. Thomas was just a teenager when his aunt offered him and his younger brothers employment at her locally owned restaurant, the Seaview Café, and Thomas quickly fell in love with the Alaskan landscape.
Years later, he was accepted into the Farmers School of Business at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. There, he studied accounting and earned both his undergraduate and master’s degrees.
But the thoughts of slaving away in a cubicle and the nostalgia of his aunt happily running a small business steered Thomas away from becoming a certified public accountant.
“I just could not stop getting my aunt out of my head and just how happy she was running a small business,” he said. “If I went into accounting, I would’ve been doing just accounting all day, every day.”
This spurred Thomas to start his own business. Seaview Outfitters was officially open for business Aug. 18, 2011, when Thomas was just a senior.
Balancing classes with operating a business was a hefty task for him. The first year of business was so busy he can hardly remember much from the period, he said. The business took off in its second year after Thomas had graduated and could dedicate more time to it.
Seaview Outfitters, now in its third year, is experiencing steady growth.
Choosing Bloomington as a second location for Seaview Outfitters was a strategic business choice that Thomas had to analyze, he said.
The consumer population in Bloomington is enormous and goes beyond the size of the city’s actual population when taking tourists into account, Thomas said. Combine this with a low number of competitors and a product that can be purchased year-round by both students and residents and you’ve got a recipe for a potentially successful small business.
Bloomington is also a place Thomas can see himself starting a family and settling down, so the decision wasn’t just about business, he said.
Thomas has big plans for Seaview Outfitters’ future. He intends to inherit his aunt’s restaurant down the road and plan guided trips from his stores in Oxford and Bloomington to Alaska.
“Those who sign up would have to be serious about a trip like that, but I think it would be a unique feature,” he said.
Further expansion of the retail store is not likely. Thomas said he’d prefer to maximize business in his current outlets rather than open 10 stores with only moderate success.
According to distinguished IU business professor and author David ?Audretsch , small business success is low, and only about one in five startups survive longer than five years.
Pointing to a diagram in one of his books, Audretsch said that as a startup approaches its fifth year of business, its hazard rate, or chance of failing, diminishes and begins to level off.
“But it’s all a matter of conditional probability,” Audretsch said, citing that geography, community and sector can affect a startup’s viability.
He also added that Seaview Outfitters is not selling commodities but emotional content, which could work in Thomas’ favor.
“Visitors of Bloomington aren’t going to the local shops to buy something they need,” Audretsch said. “They’re going to the local shops to buy something they can feel emotionally connected to and keep for its sentimental value, even if it means purchasing it at a higher price. Consumption is an experience, not a means to an end.”
Fresh out of college himself, Thomas wants to connect with the IU student body and offer advice to business students.
“You don’t have to wait until you’re older to start your own small business,” he said. “Just look at me.”
