Gloria Kay Uniforms Thriving on Experience, Reputation

For those in the uniform business who want to sell a lot of scrubs and other garments to health care workers, it’s wise to locate the shop near a hospital. That’s what Leo Weinshel and his son Mike did when they moved Gloria Kay Uniforms store to its current location in September 2008. From 2006 until 2008, the business was located in Brookfield, Wis.

Gloria Kay’s new location is in Wauwatosa, Wis., population 47,000, about 10 miles west of downtown Milwaukee. Mike Weinshel describes the surrounding area as “a typical suburban commercial location, with a Target store and fast-food restaurants nearby.” But what makes it desirable is its proximity to the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center complex.

Nurses and other employees at the nearby medical complex account for most of Gloria Kay’s walk-in business. This regional center is a complex of several medical facilities, including the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin and the Medical College of Wisconsin.

It was the latter medical facility that was directly responsible for President George W. Bush wearing hospital apparel supplied by Gloria Kay. The 43rd president spoke at the medical college a few years ago and donned the Gloria Kay garments for the event.

The school has a custom of presenting its VIP speakers with their own lab coats, which are embroidered with the school’s logo and the individual’s name. When the president spoke there, MCW staff members gave him this traditional gift. The Medical College of Wisconsin later sent the Weinshels a photo of President Bush wearing the lab coat they had chosen and embroidered for him.

Gloria Kay’s store occupies about 2,000 square feet, all on one floor. An adjoining 2,800 square feet of space serve as an office and storage area. Six employees work in the office and warehouse part of the business, and three employees work in the store, which is open six days a week.

Gloria Kay began in 1945 as a nursing uniform store but evolved to include career apparel and restaurant, hotel and corporate apparel. Leo, the store’s third owner, bought the business in 1970. He is still active in the company, but spends part of the year in Florida.

Gloria Kay is really two businesses. The retail store sells scrubs and other garments for health care workers. It also carries some work apparel for chefs, kitchen staff and other restaurant employees. But it is also a direct sales source for hotel and restaurant employees, career wear, formal wear, and uniforms for kitchen, maintenance and housekeeping staffs. These are sold mainly through either cold calls or follow-ups on leads.

Gloria Kay’s main 52-page catalog is mailed both to current customers and to prospective customers in a 100,000 copy run. Some other catalogs are sent in smaller quantities. The firm’s website, www.gloriakay.com, accounts for only a small portion of business, about five percent, but Mike expects that figure to grow.

Gloria Kay has only the one store now, but Mike says that “until about 1993, we had six retail stores. Then we sold them to Life Uniforms and kept our direct sales and catalog divisions.”

The company got back into walk-in retail when sales representatives kept telling the Weinshels that they were missing out on business because “there was a need for a decent scrubs store in the area,” Mike recalls. Despite a 12-year lapse in a physical retail location, customers remembered the Gloria Kay name and enthusiastically called asking for the store’s location. It was proof to the Weinshels that a retail location would once again succeed. This time they chose to open just “one good store. Anytime you have multiple stores, you multiply the potential for problems with staffing and inventory,” Mike explains.

On the health care side of Gloria Kay Uniforms, bestselling items include basic scrubs, pants and tops in the five or six most popular colors. For employees in hotels and restaurants, aprons, polo shirts and T-shirts are most popular.

In health care apparel brands, Cherokee is the top seller with Gloria Kay’s customers. Other name brands that they often request include White Swan, Landau and Barco. Gloria Kay carries Fame and Edwards brands of restaurant and hotel wear. Mike says that “in the restaurant and hotel business, brands are not quite so important. People don’t call in and ask if we have a particular brand of black apron. They just ask if we have the black apron.”

What sets Gloria Kay apart from its competitors, according to Mike, is “the service we provide. We’re not a big business and we have people who’ve been here for years. Customers can deal with the same person they dealt with before. That’s why we have good, long-term relationships with our customers.”

Mike believes that a successful uniform business is one that is built on relationships that develop over time. He has been in the uniform business for 25 years and his father boasts 35 to 40 years of experience. “Our vice president of sales has been with us over 20 years. Nobody in the office has been here less than 10 years,” Mike says.

This longevity of staff means that “we know our customers well. They’re not talking to a stranger who doesn’t know them and their business,” he adds. And while Gloria Kay does use, to some extent, the computers that other companies rely on completely, “most of the time we know what they need without checking their past orders,” Mike says proudly.

With that degree of service available, it’s not surprising that Gloria Kay’s customers remain loyal to the company. Some customers have been returning to the store for 10 or even 20 years. One of Gloria Kay’s long-term customers is the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks’ security, operations, event and set-up staffs have worn work apparel ordered from Gloria Kay for 21 years.

On the website and in its catalogs and other printed material, Gloria Kay describes its work apparel as “Hard-Working Clothes for Your Hard-Working Crew.” The emphasis is on clothing that is stylish, comfortable, durable and easy to care for.

That would certainly apply to polo shirts. Gloria Kay carries 40 styles for men and women. Besides the traditional style, other choices include Teflon-coated, V-neck, Scotchgard (popular with kitchen staff) and accent-striped. The T-shirts, sweatshirts and caps are bought both for working hours and as incentive items.

At Gloria Kay, camp shirts come in 20 designs, including bright floral, tropical and bird prints. The company also sells jackets, including a three-season fleece-lined coat, a water-resistant nylon windbreaker and an industrial jacket with quilted lining. Button-down shirts include such design variations as three-quarter sleeve, long sleeve and straight collars, as well as a variety of fabric choices.

Gloria Kay’s formalwear offers tuxedo shirts for men and women, matching pants, bow ties and cummerbunds, and blazers. Career wear includes cardigan suit coats and blazers, shirts and blouses, pants, shorts (pleated or plain-front chino), chino skirts, vests, smocks and 25 types of ties.

Kitchen apparel from Gloria Kay includes 18 choices of chef coats, chef pants and hats, and cook shirts. Aprons come in cobbler, butcher, bib, waist and bistro styles. Wait staff can add a money and order pad pouch. For chefs who like to come out of the kitchen to meet their dining customers, Gloria Kay sells several printed ties. Designs include vegetables, vines and grapes, wine labels and chefs at work.

Gloria Kay can outfit maintenance workers with industrial jackets and matching pants, and long- or short-sleeve industrial work shirts, all in different colors. Housekeeping staff members can wear counter coats, cargo pants, tops with snap fronts, smocks and short-sleeve toppers accented with white collars and cuffs.

The company offers embroidery and silk screen printing. Both services are contracted out. “We can do same-day alterations,” says Mike. “We have a good seamstress, who used to have her own shop here on site. She can take work home and bring it back the next day.”

The hardest part of being in the uniform business is “the competition and the challenging economy,” Mike says. He spoke of competition not only from other uniform companies but from ad specialty firms, silk screen printers, Internet dealers and other types of businesses that have branched into selling garments that uniforms suppliers carry. “People would be amazed at the amount of competition,” he adds.

Describing the informality of business attire and the casual Friday dress-down custom that has spread to other work days, Mike laments “the lack in many places of business of any desire to have their employees look like a staff or a team.” Instead of having their employees wear a complete uniform, restaurant owners give employees an apron with the company logo and tell them to wear a white shirt and khaki or dark pants.

The Weinshels’ business was affected negatively by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Recalling how the travel industry was hit so hard and then hotels and restaurants lost business, Mike says, “That trickles down to us. When hotels’ occupancy rates took a dive, they didn’t buy as much apparel for their staffs.”

Mike sees a continued slower rate of growth that can be traced back to the major losses in the travel, hotel and restaurant businesses. “These businesses learned to get by with less, to get by with fewer staff members and to buy less for the ones they had.”

Another negative factor impacting his business is its proximity to Michigan with its poor economy. “If you’re doing business where the economy relies on the auto industry, it affects your business. We have done a fair amount of business in Michigan because it’s right across the lake,” Mike explains.

Even with his years of experience, Mike sees the uniform business is challenging, especially given the uncertain economy. What has gotten easier is dealing with suppliers, with the advent of computers and the Internet. “I can order online, see if it’s in the stores and when I’ll receive it,” Mike says. “When I order 100 or 200 pieces, garments or scrubs, it’s not unusual that the supplier will have every single piece, assorted sizes, in stock.”

That speed in ordering and shipment is important because “people expect things immediately. Years ago it wasn’t unusual for orders to take four, six, even eight weeks to reach us,” Mike says.

Special orders can pose their own problems when customers expect quick service. “We do a lot of special orders, very small or very large sizes. People want their special orders within a day or two, but it’s more like a week or two before they arrive.”

In looking ahead five years for Gloria Kay Uniforms, Mike says, “I would hope that we have grown, that we have become a bit more profitable. I’m not one to set hard objects or goals. I think more in general terms, just being profitable.”

The Weinshels have no plans to expand Gloria Kay with more stores. Instead, they are hoping that each part of the business will help the others to grow. With a focus on service, Gloria Kay is well-positioned to experience just that.

Gloria Kay Uniforms
3720 N. 124th St., Unit G
Wauwatosa, WI 53222
Phone: (414) 464-1400
Fax: (414) 464-1402
www.gloriakay.com