A Seller of Lifestyle

Jim Murray's appearance fits the stereotype of his job; effortlessly and fashionably dressed, but never overstated. When interviewed, he was wearing a fitted sport coat, broad collar shirt and silk tie with a pair of clean, perfectly cut jeans, defining casually elegant. With his personal style, he demonstrates a sense of balance between the fickle fashions of New York and the sensibility of West Michigan.

Murray, as general manger of AK Rikk's, faces a complicated balancing act and this equilibrium is the key to both Murray's and AK Rikk's success. He keeps everything in harmony, filling many roles as buyer, salesman, manager and friend to both the staff and customers. He moves among the groups with an ease that, like his salt and pepper hair, belies his 33 years of age.

There's competition, of course, in the form of Bergdorf, Barney's, Saks and other national brands with combined earnings estimated at well over $10 billion as well as competing chains that comprise the lion's share of the retail luxury apparel market. This could give members of the sartorially inclined in West Michigan many reasons to leave the area to a buy the best and latest in men's fashions in New York or Chicago. Murray's mission is to keep these customers well dressed, and their consumption and tax dollars in West Michigan -- local first, but with a fashionable twist, making AK Rikk's a nationally recognized boutique that has grown by 60 percent in the face of the worst economy in West Michigan in years. In fact, it was Murray who inquired with New York's Fashion's Night Out organizers to have Grand Rapids act as a participating city. For the Sept. 10 event, AK Rikk's opened a pop-up shop downtown.

Murray's composure and prowess at growing a luxury clothing enterprise in the face of the well-funded and branded competition is, at its root, old-fashioned. Because AK Rikk's is not a large department store, Murray and the rest of the staff offer a personal shopping experience rarely found in the larger retail environment. Just as Murray himself will keep on top of the different trends in fashion, his employees follow 20-30 blogs on a near daily basis, keeping abreast of current trends and helping customers choose clothing that blends fashion with individual style.  

"My business is putting people in the best clothes that I can get," Murray says.

This makes Murray and the rest of his staff at AK Rikk's more then salespeople, but also a resource for their customers.

"If you treat your people well and they treat your customers well, it works," says Murray. "I'm a seller of lifestyle. I don't think of myself as a buyer. That's just a means to an ends." As much as Murray and his staff rely on traditional personal services, AK Rikk's has started using inventory metrics and internal Facebook groups so that everybody is, quite literally, on the same page.

"I'm a math guy," says Murray, "but while numbers lead to solutions, they don't have passion."

Many of Murray's strategies come from an entire career's worth of experience in retail apparel. He got his first retail job at the age of 17, working at J. Riggins after an accident made him unable to play sports at Wyoming Park High School. From there, he worked his way into managing the Bachrach at Woodland mall, turning a struggling store (53 out of 55) into the most profitable store of the brand, in spite of the handicap of two years of mall construction.  From these experiences, Murray drew simple but powerful lessons that he still uses. "Listen to your customer first" is one of them.

Overcoming the construction limitations at the Bachrach location taught Murray "people will always find cool."  To embrace cool, Murray made sure that AK Rikk's was the second store in the country to carry clothes from Etro, and currently keeps a wide inventory selection of certain niche brands -- more then can be found at competitors like Barney's in Chicago. For instance, Etro is joined by other brands like Rag and Bone, John Varvatos and Ralph Lauren's Black Label.  "With the big stores in Chicago, it's 90 percent steak and 10 percent sizzle when it comes to the kind of clothes that they carry," Murray says.  According to Murray, what this means is that larger stores with larger customer bases are forced to carry more mediocre stock for the center of their market. Because AK Rikk's is on a literal first-name basis with many of their customers, they can sell 90 percent sizzle (such as limited-edition items and rare personal accessories hard to find anywhere else), and only the best elsewhere for the discerning customer of taste.

Buying the highest quality in apparel from New York, Milan and beyond and bringing it to Grand Rapids, Murray has had his share of experiences and successes since those days at Wyoming Park High School. To the good fortune of Grand Rapids, he's managed to stay close to home the entire time.




Adam Bird is a photographer and writer who makes pictures that tell stories, writes stories that share pictures and who is insatiably curious about how everything works. On twitter, @AdamBirdPhoto, or on Facebook.

Photos:

Jim Murray (4)

AK Rikks (1)

Photographs by Brian Kelly -All Rights Reserved