A Retail Tale of Two Cities : San Franciscans Like Traditional Items; Trendy Sells in Los Angeles, Causing Headache for Marketers

In San Francisco, the posh and proper restaurant Trader Vic’s has always required men to wear jackets and ties. But customers balked, so several months ago it loosened the knot on its tie policy--although jackets are still a must.

In Los Angeles, however, a far more laid-back Trader Vic’s has never required jackets and ties. In fact, owners say, in Los Angeles it’s tough enough just to keep some customers from wearing tennis shorts into the dining room.

“When my father started the business in 1934, men wore jackets and ties when they went out to dinner,” said Lynn Bergeron, co-owner of Trader Vic’s. Not wanting to upset too many old-time patrons, there is still one dining room at its San Francisco restaurant where a tie is required. “But,” said Bergeron, “we’re starting to catch up with what’s going on today in Los Angeles.”

Of course, lots more than jackets and ties separate California’s two trend-setting cities.

The upscale gift and gadget store chain Sharper Image says its $39 fog-free shower mirrors sell twice as fast in Los Angeles as San Francisco. Yet when it comes to the designer pens sold by Sharper Image, well, the writing is on the wall--San Francisco is by far the bigger market.

Then again, Los Angeles residents buy about twice as many of Sharper Image’s $429 high-tech fitness machines than do their San Francisco counterparts. But for its $99 electronic plasma balls--those gadgets that plug into wall sockets and look like slow moving ink blobs--sales are nearly double in San Francisco what they are in Los Angeles.

“If something makes people feel, sound or look better, it will sell better in Los Angeles,” said Craig Womack, senior vice president at Sharper Image. “But if it is more business related--or maybe more artistic--it will sell better in San Francisco.”

And curiously, in a recent consumer study, Mervyn’s, which has twice as many discount department stores in Los Angeles as San Francisco, ranked among the top three favorite chains in San Francisco--but it fell near the very bottom of the heap in Los Angeles.

This is a retail tale of two cities. And it is a far different tale from that facing other major cities located in the same state--such as Dallas and Houston or Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. In most states, retailers can use a single marketing plan. But companies with outlets in both Los Angeles and San Francisco have learned that they must often carry very different merchandise in those stores.

It is no accident that Lucky Stores seem to be more popular in San Francisco than in Los Angeles. And where Gump’s sells lots of modern art in Los Angeles, the walls in its San Francisco store are mostly decked with more traditional works. And one restaurant chain that sells desserts like crazy in Los Angeles has all but given up on trying to sell them in San Francisco.

“It’s a sort of cultural version of the fish growing as big as the bowl,” said August Coppola, dean of creative arts at San Francisco State University. “In San Francisco, there really hasn’t been the physical or emotional room to grow, so the yuppie is still a guppie. But in Los Angeles, the yuppie is essentially swimming around in a lake, and it has grown to become a carp.”

With this growth has spawned a desire for constant change. “In Los Angeles, everything keeps getting ripped up and changed. And everything seems to evolve in an orientation to the fashion and film industries,” said Coppola, who has also lived in Los Angeles. “But in San Francisco, things evolve according to a value system. Within that system--and within this city--there’s a sense of what the whole is.”

Indeed, lots more than 387 miles of highway separate two of California’s largest cities. And most smart retailers recognize that.

What is it that makes Los Angeles tick while San Francisco tocks?

Obvious factors include population (3.4 million residents in Los Angeles versus 741,000 in San Francisco); weather (the mean, year-round temperature in downtown Los Angeles is 65 degrees, compared to 56 degrees in downtown San Francisco); and perhaps cultural traditions. But retailers have also had to come to grips with some key demographic differences.

Fine Art Consumption

The Los Angeles market has a greater percentage of consumers who are professionals, have never married and have larger annual household incomes than do their San Francisco counterparts. But there are other very important factors that have less to do with demographics and more to do with a sort of historical psychology.

“Los Angeles is making up for lost time,” explained Kevin Starr, cultural historian and author of the book “Americans and the California Dream.” “The pressures on Los Angeles today are reflective of the Gold Rush conditions in San Francisco 140 years ago.”

While the economic boom hit San Francisco more than a century ago, it didn’t really begin in Los Angeles until after World War II, said Starr. “We’re not energized in San Francisco,” said Starr, “by the same economic vitality and social stimulation as Los Angeles.”

Geography has also played a major role. “San Francisco is on a peninsula, so its people have mostly lived in a congregated area,” said James D. Hart, a San Francisco resident and author of the travel guide “Companion to California.”

“But Los Angeles is a wide open area,” Hart said. “That makes for an entirely different conception of who you are, what you are and how you live.”

Even the number-crunchers agree. For two years, Impact Resources, a Columbus, Ohio-based research firm, has carefully tracked the buying habits of thousands of residents in both cities. Its findings show that Los Angeles consumers are far more likely than San Francisco residents to have VCRs, compact disc players and telephone answering machines.

But San Francisco consumers, its findings also show, are more likely to have cable TV. Yet they are less likely than Los Angeles residents to watch many of the most of the popular cable offerings such as MTV. “Retailers know they can’t go after everyone,” said Patty Mintos, a researcher at Impact Resources. “So the successful ones target certain consumers in these markets and focus on them.”

Age-Old Problem at Gump’s

Sometimes, they aren’t all that successful.

The Wendy’s hamburger chain has a lot more locations in Los Angeles than in San Francisco, yet overall, its outlets in San Francisco do more business. Why? Well, according the Impact Resources study of thousands of Wendy’s customers in both cities, while Wendy’s has done an excellent job of matching its customer profile to the market in San Francisco, it hasn’t done so well in Los Angeles.

Take college graduates, for example. In San Francisco, 30% of the Wendy’s customers said they were college graduates--nearly identical to the market average. But in Los Angeles, where nearly 30% of the area’s residents surveyed are college graduates, only 23% of Wendy’s customers said they had college degrees.

And why are Lucky stores more popular in San Francisco than Los Angeles? “Lucky has done a better job in San Francisco targeting the San Francisco consumer,” said Mintos. For example, the Impact Resources survey found the typical Lucky shopper in San Francisco to be 27 years old--exactly the same age as the typical grocery shopper in the San Francisco market. Likewise, the typical Lucky shopper in Los Angeles was also 27 years old--but that’s more than four years older than the average age of the typical Southland shopper.

It is an age-old problem at Gump’s, too. The big age barrier between its shoppers in Los Angeles and San Francisco can sometimes give the upscale gift store fits, said William Goulet, vice president of the company. “It’s very puzzling to us,” said Goulet, but the typical Gump’s shopper at its 127-year-old store in San Francisco is in the late 40s, while the average customer at its 5-year-old Beverly Hills store is in the mid-30s.

In particular, this age difference affects the types of art work the individual stores stock, he said. At the San Francisco store, those familiar bird prints by 19th Century artist John James Audubon are especially popular. But in the Los Angeles store, some of the best-selling work comes from David Hockney, a contemporary artist who often seems to poke fun at Los Angeles in his paintings. “As opposed to our San Francisco location, where people seem to prefer to look at the past,” said Goulet, “the interest in our Beverly Hills store seems to always be in what’s happening right now.”

Drinking Habits Watched

Age, however, is only one of many factors that account for the diverse buying habits of people in these two cities. And local bistros, in particular, have had to come to grips with these often wild fluctuations.

Even the drinking habits of Los Angeles and San Francisco residents are carefully watched at Trader Vic’s. The restaurant chain says it sells a lot more of its specialty mixed drinks in Los Angeles--cocktails like the mai tai, which is made with rum, fruit juice, and often comes garnished with a tiny orchid. In San Francisco, however, expensive wines are the bigger seller.

When it comes to planning a menu, things can get even more tricky. Oddly, Trader Vic’s famous San Francisco sourdough bread goes over better in Los Angeles than San Francisco, said Bergeron. But its marinated lamb entree is a bigger hit in San Francisco.

“In San Francisco, our customers are the basic lunch buyers who don’t want a lot of frills with their meals,” said James Sochin, president of Standard Soup Co., which operates Salmagundi restaurants in both cities. “But in Los Angeles, people like to take risks--even with the lunches they buy.”

Just how risky can a Los Angeles lunch be?

Well, nearly one in three Los Angeles eaters also grabs a dessert at Salmagundi. In San Francisco, less than one in 10 customers buy dessert there, said Sochin. What’s more, while one of the very best-selling lunch entrees in its Southland location is a seven-layer “pasta torte,” the dish sold so poorly in San Francisco that some locations there have stripped it from the menu.

Even the decor at Salmagundi’s Southland and Bay Area locations are “100% different,” said Sochin. Especially the colors. The color scheme at its three San Francisco stores is shades of brown and apricot. But the interior of its Southland location at South Coast Plaza was recently repainted a bright white, along with colorful, 7-foot-tall abstract figures painted on the walls.

“We would never do anything like this in San Francisco,” said Sochin. “The difference is how people perceive themselves. In San Francisco, people see themselves as being very cosmopolitan. In Los Angeles, people are much more easygoing.”

Perhaps nowhere are these differences more striking than in fashion.

Understated Approach in S.F.

Once again, the Impact Resources study bears this out. When it comes to where they buy health and beauty aids, San Franciscans showed very strong loyalty to particular drugstores. But in Los Angeles, consumers showed far more concern about which department stores and clothing stores they shopped at.

“There is a flamboyant, creative way of dressing in Los Angeles that is in stark contrast to the refined and understated approach in San Francisco,” said Sarah Davies, corporate fashion director at Nordstrom, the upscale specialty store chain that has stores in both cities.

As a result, Nordstrom stocks its women’s departments very differently in the two cities. In Los Angeles, she said, the stores have lots of “body-hugging” fashions and much lighter colors--especially pastels. In San Francisco, however, the store gives much more floor space to fashionable business wear in dark colors such as purple, red and burgundy.

Sometimes these differences can cause friction at big retail chains. Carter Hawley Hale Stores, for example, owns the Broadway department store chain in Los Angeles and the Emporium chain in San Francisco. When buyers from the both chains get together to purchase women’s fashions, there can be big disagreements over what to buy.

“We sit in meetings and look for common ground,” said Lee Hogan Cass, the Broadway’s fashion director, “but there are going to be some products that Emporium buyers will find to their liking that we don’t. And we let them know it.”

Esprit de Corps, the San Francisco-based maker of trendy sportswear, has learned to put its higher ticket items in Los Angeles locations. “There’s a lot less price pressure in Los Angeles,” said Lisa Engler, director of retail sales for Esprit. “We can always sell more expensive items in Los Angeles.”

In fact, when the chain opened its giant “super store,” in 1984, it selected a Los Angeles location for that reason--and pumped millions of dollars into its architecture. “The thinking was, we’d also get more exposure in L.A.,” Engler said.

Even when it comes to prom dresses, Los Angeles and San Francisco teen-agers dance to a different tune.

“Every kid who grows up in Los Angeles is faced with that Hollywood stamp,” said Jessica McClintock, a San Francisco-based designer of romantic, dressy fashions. “Unlike San Francisco, the Los Angeles girl has this attitude that says, ‘I’m coming in the door and I want everyone to see me.’ ”

Weather a Big Factor

As a result, in Los Angeles, McClintock mostly stocks prom dresses that are flashy and often cut above the knee. But in her San Francisco stores, she stocks prom dresses that fall from the mid-calf to the ankle. “Remember,” she said, “San Francisco is a city where people commonly wear ball gowns to the opera.”

Fashion aside, weather can play a large factor, too. When Brooks Bros. stocks the men’s department at its store in downtown San Francisco, it basically fills the shelves with the same heavier weight clothing that it sells in its East Coast stores, said George Hanley, senior vice president at Brooks Bros. But when it stocks the same department in its Los Angeles area stores, it’s more of the summer weights, “like what we’d sell in Texas or Tulsa.”

But it isn’t just the people who live in the two cities that determine what the stores stock. Tourists can call the shots, too.

Saks Fifth Avenue, for example, caters far more to big-spending Japanese tourists in its San Francisco stores than it does in Los Angeles.

“As a result,” said Harvey Rosenbloom, Saks’ senior vice president and director of the chain’s Western region stores, “things like Louis Vitton handbags sell a lot better in San Francisco, where Japanese tourism is much stronger.”

On the other hand, any quirky accessories that Saks carries almost always sell better in Los Angeles than San Francisco, said Rosenbloom. “You know, things like hand-painted T-shirts or offbeat jewelry.”

Sunglasses are another story altogether. It might seem that sunglasses should be far better sellers in Los Angeles than San Francisco. After all, what self-respecting Hollywood movie star doesn’t have at least a dozen pair? And what would anyone in often-foggy San Francisco need sunglasses for, anyway?

Well, surprise! Not only are sunglasses big sellers in San Francisco, but at some stores they may even sell a tad better there than in Los Angeles, said Mary Hamilton, vice president and director of fashion merchandising for San Francisco’s Emporium department store chain. “In fact, we figure that the average woman who shops at our stores in San Francisco has six to eight pairs,” said Hamilton. “I have 10 pairs myself, but I never wanted to admit that to anyone.”