Stores Are Golden Opportunity for Quiksilver : Marketing: Surf wear firm’s expanded line, including children’s and women’s fashions, is offered in licensed Boardrider Club outlets.

Quiksilver has built its image on hard-core surfing jams, T-shirts and caps.

But the surf wear company’s new Boardrider Club retail store on Forest Avenue in Laguna Beach shows clearly that the brand encompasses a whole lot more, including a growing line of women’s and children’s fashions.

Peek into the display window, and you’ll see women’s dresses, accessories and tops. Close by is a new line of clothing for boys ages 4 through 7. Nestled in the back is a decidedly upscale line aimed at older guys with bigger bucks to spend.

Quiksilver has licensed the Boardrider concept to store owners in Laguna Beach, Santa Cruz, Hawaii and Utah. The outlets are designed to turn a profit for their owners, but they are also to serve as retail laboratories where Quiksilver can show surf shop owners and department store buyers how to maximize sales.

Quiksilver executives say that the stores’ blend of men’s, women’s and children’s clothing lines proves to retailers that surf designs “can be inclusive rather than exclusive to hard-core surfers,” said Randall D. Hunt, the Laguna Beach shop’s co-owner and a member of Quiksilver’s corporate board.

“When Quik sells through a department store, our pants get mixed in with everyone else’s pants, and the (design) magic is lost,” Hunt said. “But with Boardrider Club, it’s sort of like Banana Republic done with a Quik twist.”

To grasp the breadth of Quiksilver’s growing product line is difficult in a department store, which will typically have shelf space for only a few surf wear items, Hunt said. And, surf shops generally buy stock from dozens of companies.

In the 1,850-square-foot store on Forest Avenue, however, every shelf and display rack is dedicated to the Costa Mesa-based company’s lines. Hunt and co-owner Eric John will add other manufacturers’ clothing, but the store will always showcase Quiksilver’s.

“The average surf shop owner doesn’t know this (type of sales presentation) is possible,” said John, who also owns Laguna Surf and Sport store and Second Reef Surf Shop, two nearby specialty stores. “This shows them how to operate a retail store as opposed to flying by the seat of their pants.”

John, who has been in the surf wear business for 12 years, said that shop owners typically view the Quiksilver store either as “a threat to their business or as an opportunity to learn how to increase their sales.”

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Quiksilver isn’t the only surf wear maker using “company stores” to showcase its offerings. Mossimo and Stussy have their own stores, and Gotcha recently introduced a “shop concept” that stakes out space inside existing surf wear stores.

Tom Noble, owner of specialty store Newport Surf & Sport in Newport Beach, described the Gotcha shop within his store as “nothing different than what Ralph Lauren did in Macy’s with the Ralph Lauren store.”

Mossimo Giannulli, who opened his signature store in November at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, has said that the shop is designed to emphasize that his growing lines of clothing and accessories extend far beyond beachwear.