Monthly Issue
From Home Furnishing Business
July 1,
2013 by Home Furnishing Business in Business Strategy, Industry, Retail Snapshot 
Jerome’s Furniture Looks to Expand Its Customer Reach While Keeping Firm Hold of Its Base.
A family company that looked outside the fold is making waves in Southern California’s furniture retail scene.
Jerome’s Furniture in San Diego had built a thriving business, and while the Navarra family behind the company remains firmly in place, some new blood has added some pop.
CEO Lee Goodman joined the company six years ago, bringing in a fresh face with furniture retailing chops developed at Bob’s Discount Furniture to bear on a promotional institution in the San Diego area.
Jerome’s is expanding into the Los Angeles market and bringing new retail concepts to bear in its efforts.
“Jerome’s has been in business in Southern California for 59 years,” Goodman said. “We are family owned and have a genuine relationship with the community. San Diego has seen Jerry Navarra (our chairman) on TV for the last 40 years, and now his sons Mark and Jim Navarra have begun to show up in some branding ads. “People know us and trust us. We honor our relationship with them by not participating in phony promotions and gimmicks. We have every day low prices. It’s a much more respectful approach to the furniture buying process and our industry. As we expand into the L.A. market, where people are not as familiar with our brand, it presents a wealth of opportunity.”
IT STARTS WITH PEOPLE
What makes Jerome’s different from other home furnishings retailers in the markets it serves?
“To sum it up, it’s our people,” Goodman said. “We have built a team here that is nothing short of phenomenal. Nothing works without the right people, their ability to execute our strategies at the level they do is extraordinary.
“It all starts with the Navarre family. Their warmth and generosity, coupled with their trust has created a relationship that allowed us to make the kinds of decisions we have to make to be successful.”
Those changes included a reorganization of management, but the biggest was a move away from running promotions and sales to working with the “Jerry’s everyday low price” that Goodman mentioned above.
A combination of an established retail brand and avoidance of gimmicky sales paid dividends during the recession.
“It was hard on us, just like it was on the rest of the world,” Goodman said. “We focused on doing the right things and staying disciplined to our model. During tough times, the trust our brand created through the years is seen as a real plus.”
IMPROVING THE EXPERIENCE
Jerome’s has stepped up the shopping experience in its stores. In-store signage allows is helping customer to engage with the brand in an informative, fresh way.
“In-store signage is now more design- and creative-oriented,” Goodman said. “It’s all under the umbrella of improving the customer experience, and we do serve a wide range of customers.
“You can’t be all things to all people, but with our large selection, we’re able to approach a lot of them.”
Finding that “right” selection of product so the consumer can find what she’s looking for is easier said than done, Goodman said.
“After that, it becomes all about value. We pack a lot of features into our product for the dollar,” he said. “We have decades of relationships with vendors, where it makes sense we go direct, and we negotiate great prices on behalf of our customers. We work diligently with our partners to ensure value.
“Merchandising is dependent on what sells best in each individual market. We do notice style preferences shift from market to market, so it’s constantly reviewed.”
THE RIGHT TOOLS
Jerome’s also gives sales associates the tools they need, such as tablets, to create relationships with customers and ensure they are making the right decisions for their home. The store also shares numbers to keep associates on track.
“We get closing rates at not only the store level but at the individual salesperson level—and we find out where they lost the sale, based on questions sales managers are trained to ask,” Goodman said. “We create a dashboard for people so they gain understanding and a perspective of where they stand.”
Metrics “are a big part of who we are,” he added. “We use them to help guide us in finding issues in our company. What products are (customers) coming in for? What’s the impact of our advertising?
“It allows us to make changes based on real information. (For example) We’re a little light on bedding compared to where we want to be. We’ll look at the numbers to see where we should be changing our product offerings.”
SENDING THE MESSAGE
How does Jerome’s express its retail vision in marketing and advertising efforts?
“We run several different messages at one time—branding, services, product focused—whatever we feel is most important for us to communicate at the moment,” Goodman said. “Our target customer covers such a wide range of the American public, we want to be relevant to what they are looking for.”
In addition to television, radio testimonial ads and the occasional print ad, the retailer is exploring digital more and more, and it publishes an upscale custom magazine twice a year.
“As far as digital goes, we’re on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Houzz.com,” Goodman said. “We are constantly revamping our Web site. We’re learning like everyone else, but I know those aspects of our business are only going to continue to get more and more important.”
The aim is to build a big tent that serves as wide a base of consumers as possible.
“No matter how much people make or how much they want to spend, we’re going to have something for most of them in our model,” Goodman said. “We can send out different types of messages to different people without losing who we are. It’s not class-based. All those different ingredients, all those different prices, reach a lot of people.”
Moving forward, Goodman pointed to strategic partnerships with suppliers “and a little thing called the World Wide Web” as keys to future growth.
“We look at e-commerce as a tool to, first, engage customers; and then drive them into our stores,” he said. “The Internet is our focus. We’re going to expand our customer base but not lose our existing customers.” HFB
June 1,
2013 by in Retail Snapshot
By Powell Slaughter
Ask most furniture retailers for their best sales day week in and week out, and a lot will answer Sunday.
While most furniture stores depend on a full weekend to meet their goals, most people out there in the world take Sunday as a day to be with their families and worship as they see fit (or maybe even shop for furniture).
If you work at De Young Interiors in St. John, Ind., you can enjoy that day as well.
Though it shuts the doors on Sundays, De Young is still thriving after 87 years in business.
“We are a faith-based company, and we are closed on Sundays,” said Co-Owner John De Young. “We’ve been able to thrive and survive.”
It also helps make for happier employees.
“A very large store in our area closed, and I knew the sales manager,” De Young said. “I was talking to her about a job, and I told her, ‘You won’t be able to make that kind of money here because we’re closed on Sundays.’ That’s our church and family day.”
While the woman had children and would have liked the time with them, she still wasn’t sure about the money issue. She ended up giving it a shot at De Young Interiors.
“Three months later I asked her how she was liking her Sundays off, and she said she loved it,” De Young said. “In our industry, we push and push and push, and we get burned out. My grandparents set these standards and we carried them on. … We have a sign at the front of the store, and one of the things on there is “Closed Sundays, See You in Church.
“People tell me they appreciate those values. I’m not going to push religion on anyone, but this does serve as our ‘silent’ witness.”
Customers seem to like the store as well—it won the region’s “Best of” in the furniture store category this year.
4 GENERATIONS—SO FAR
Nick and Cora De Young started the business when they opened a joint furniture store and funeral home in South Holland, Ill., in 1928—a common business pairing at the time, when the makers of fine furniture also made caskets.
The store’s emphasis on building relationships in the community it serves dates back to the Great Depression years, when the De Youngs would let people pay their bills when they were able to, a little at a time. That built a spirit of trust and friendship with their customers.
The De Youngs opened a second location in nearby Lansing, Ill., in 1939; and soon committed to the furniture only, bringing their customers more brands and a larger variety of products.
Upon retirement, Nick and Cora De Young turned the business over to their three sons: Gerry, Arnold and Sidney. The brothers ran De Young’s until their retirement in 1993, when the stores passed to their sons and sons-in-law; Jerry and John De Young, Bob Scheuneman and Tom McGehee.
De Youngs closed their South Holland and Lansing locations and, in 2005, the company opened De Young Interiors in St. John, Ind. De Young’s had made a decision to put all its efforts into a single, strong location.
“The demographics were good, and it’s a growth area,” said John De Young of St. John, located along interstates 30 miles south of Chicago in northwest Indiana. “Our town just got rated by CNN as the best place in Indiana to raise a family. The store is right across the street from Lakes Central High School, with 4,000 students. They’ve had a $140 million expansion.
“We’re on a very busy highway, U.S. 41, and that school is a landmark, with parents going to events there. It put us in a highly visible area.”
AN EAR TO THE GROUND
The four partners in De Young Interiors each have 40 years of experience in the business.
“An owner is always on site,” De Young said. “Any time we have to make a call on something to get a customer satisfied, it’s coming from the highest authority—one advantage of a family business.
“My office is right by our counter. I have two open doors, and I can hear the interaction. It’s going back to what we were doing in 1928, with third, fourth and fifth generations of customers.”
Some family owned retailers have closed up shop because they couldn’t get the next generation interested in continuing on or family squabbles.
“The foundation of priorities and how we treat each other is huge, because some families don’t get along,” De Young said. “We disagree sometimes, but we all are committed to the business and each other.”
CARVING A NICHE
De Young Interiors positions itself firmly in medium to upper-middle price points.
“We don’t deal with low-end product, but we have some price-conscious items, and we don’t go crazy at the high end,” De Young said. “That’s where we hang our hat. Customers have come to know us and trust us because of the good brands we carry and the service we offer.”
In May, De Young Interiors was voted “Best in Region” for furniture stores by readers of the local paper.
“We’d won that award in the past, but hadn’t last year,” De Young said. “We won again because we’ve worked a little harder.”
De Young Interiors’ floor staff is a mix of interior designers and sales consultants who have no design background per se, but all are highly trained on the products they sell. The store develops skills through mentoring; and relies more on selling value versus price alone.
“Take Smith Bros.’ construction—our sales consultants know how to say, ‘You may see the same fabric on a less expensive model, but the quality underneath this is better,” De Young said. “Our industry made a mistake by going cheap, cheap, cheap all the time instead of selling value. We have flourished because we’re selling better product and explaining the difference to customers.”
PRESENTATION ON THE FLOOR
Time was, De Young tended to buy the sorts of products he wanted, but that’s changing. There’s more designer input involved now.
In addition to the designers on staff, De Young’s son Kyle, who is sales manager, has a degree from Savannah College of Art and Design. His new bride as of this month has a degree from Harrington College of Design in Chicago.
“Since we have more designers on staff, we’ve gone to more of a committee approach to buying decisions,” De Young said. “Kyle helped bring that to the table. We’re combining the experience of management with the input of designers and sales managers.
“We’re very heavily accessorized—presentation is everything if you’re going to help people visualize how it will look in the home.”
CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION
A knowledgeable staff combined with a new emphasis on direct mail and e-mail blasts to give De Young Interiors what De Young “the best first quarter we ever had.”
“We’re continually trying to improve how we communicate to the customers,” he said. “We’ve done television and local cable, and radio in the past, but what we hang our hat on now is our mailing list—direct mail and e-mail.
“I don’t really understand social media, but Kyle does. We’re trying to market more on the social media side along with direct mail pieces. I’m convinced a lot of people aren’t reading newspapers.”
Direct mail and e-mail are especially effective because of the relationships De Young Interiors has built after 87 years in business.
De Young shared an anecdote.
“In 1928, my grandfather started the business, and in the early ‘30s he bought a hardware repair shop,” he said. “A local roofer bought nails from my grandfather.
“In 2004, I was moving records and came across a ledger with this roofer. When I moved to northern Indiana, the man at the end of the block turned out to be the owner of that roofing company.”
De Young shared the ledger with his neighbor, and in addition to getting his business, “he sends his kids to me. You can’t buy that kind of word of mouth.”
GETTING OVER THE HUMP
Like most retailers, De Young Interiors faced a lot of challenges during the recession and the economy’s slow recovery.
“I think the economy in general has made everyone do a self-check,” De Young said. “We had to do cut-backs, but we’re adding people again.
“We had built a new store and were on a real roll when the economy tanked. We keep talking about it on a daily basis.”
While De Young Interiors isn’t resting easy, the immediate future does look promising.
“We had the best first quarter we ever had, and my warehouse is jammed with sold merchandise,” De Young noted. “I think the rest of the year will be good, but I don’t know if it will be great.”
Since De Young Interiors moved to St. Johns, 15 other furniture stores serving the market are no longer in business. The key to the store’s prosperity is Business 101, but apparently not everyone can pass that course.
“The amount of business you can get on the front end, you can lose on the back end,” De Young said. “We watch the doors on both ends, pay attention to detail and minimize expense.”
And despite a lot of multi-generational customer relationships—maybe even because of those relationships—service and satisfaction remain paramount.
“Ours is not a guaranteed approach,” De Young noted. “You have to keep earning that business.” HFB
Inset Story
Next Generation
De Young Furniture Is Setting up for Another Generation of Family Management
Kyle De Young, sales manager at De Young Interiors and son of co-owner John De Young, represents the furniture retailer’s fourth generation of management.
He brings a fine eye and a competitive personality—Kyle went to Savannah College of Art and Design on a baseball scholarship where he graduated in 2010 with a degree in visual communications with a concentration in design.
He’s getting married this month, and his bride Carolyn has a design degree, hers from Harrington College of Design in Chicago.
It’s not where he visualized being, but the family business has provided an outlet to match his skills. A poor job market made working in his field a tough prospect; and after attracting the attention of a number of professional baseball scouts for his middle-infield and outfield play, a shoulder injury left Kyle unable to throw.
“My whole life, I’ve been able to draw and paint,” he said. “I also had played baseball my whole life. … My dad had always said (furniture retailing) is hard, you don’t want to work here,” he said.
Still, Kyle had worked in the store’s back end as he grew up, and he was determined to get a job.
“I’m very competitive by nature,” he said. “I asked if I could work in the business, and (my father) said ‘no’ at first. Suddenly, my cousin moved from a customer service position.”
Kyle finally talked his dad into letting him give it a try.
“I took it as a challenge to solve problems,” he said. “When people call in and they’re upset, it’s like they’re saying your family’s doing them wrong. I take that personally.
“People often feel they’re being taken advantage of, and with a lot of the retail experiences they have, I can understand why.”
Proving that he could take care of some of retail’s trickiest and most emotional situations, Kyle got a shot at sales.
John De Young challenged his son that he wasn’t up to sales.
“My competitive nature came out in sales,” Kyle said. “My goal is that our family is going to take care of the customer better than the next person. We’re going to inform you more than the next person, and give you the best price and the best value.
“My goal is to be better each day with whatever we’re doing, and we have to do a lot of different things in a day—selling on the floor, creating settings, backing up the warehouse.”
John De Young said Kyle brought the passion that won him a scholarship to the store, especially in terms of reaching out to a new generation of customers.
“In the father-son relationship, it’s always been my goal to challenge my boys,” the elder De Young said. “Sports taught good communications skills, good people skills, and how to work with a team to make it all work.”
In addition to his work at De Young, Kyle puts his design background to work on vendor Whittier Wood Furniture’s design committee.
“He helped make some changes in their youth line, suggestions he brought to the table,” John said. “You don’t see many people his age in the business doing that. Kyle has the passion for it—that furniture fever people get.
“I worked side-by-side with my dad, and it makes me very proud to have Kyle by my side. On a daily basis, we bounce ideas around about product, and Kyle brings his age group’s perspective. That’s helped our business. There are some things I don’t agree with, but he’s made the right call on many occasions.”
May 1,
2013 by in Retail Snapshot
By Powell Slaughter
A focus on bringing a fashion and design orientation to middle price points and making shopping there a family tradition has meant steady growth of Montgomery’s Furniture.
The fifth-generation family business just opened its third and largest location, a 60,000-square-foot store in Watertown, S.D., which joins existing stores in Madison and Sioux Falls.
“We aren’t the biggest stores, the biggest operators in the market, so our approach is to keep that family way of doing business, that family atmosphere,” said Clark Sinclair , who owns Montgomery’s Furniture along with wife, Connie, son, Eric and daughter-in-law Neala.
“We’ve kept it different by spending a lot of time on displays and accessories at all our stores. We look for unique, fashionable fabrics and accessories. The bigger stores in our area concentrate on high-volume prices and looks, so we merchandise away from them. Our niche is to do the things they don’t want to do, which involves looking for something a little more on the fringe, a little younger. We try to stay a little more on trend.
“We constantly search for the kind of products that aren’t safe enough for the big boxes, so we give our customers a completely different experience.”
ACCESSIBLE FASHION, DESIGN SERVICES
Montgomery’s Watertown and Madison stores carry middle price points, while the Sioux Falls caters to a higher-end customer.
“A lot of our sales people are degreed interior designers with a lot of years of experience,” Sinclair noted. “We have a very stable staff that’s thoroughly qualified to go into the home and help consumers with complimentary design service.”
That’s for all three stores, not just the higher-end Sioux Falls location. It’s in-home design service at very accessible price points. Stability among the sales staff—indeed, all levels has been key—and Sinclair believes it’s because the company gives its sales/design staff the support they need to do their job.
“We feel we’re providing an opportunity for them to run their own business,” he said.
“They don’t have to clean the store or buy for the store, that’s all done for them. We give them a lot of latitude to do their job.”
More than half of Montgomery’s 85 employees are in supporting roles to the sales staff: “We have all the support people—cleaning, delivery, customer service,” Sinclair said. “In some stores, the sales staff has to clean up, handle customer service.
“We make our own draperies in-house, so the designers can work with those accents with customers in the store.”
The store’s Web site highlights its design service with designer profiles; and a room-planning tool is front-and-center on the home page.
126 YEARS AND COUNTING
The business dates back to 1888, when the Dakotas were still a territory.
“George Montgomery was a cabinet maker from back East who came out as far as the railroad went,” Sinclair said. “He stopped at the end of the line.”
Montgomery set up as an undertaker and furniture dealer. His son took over the business along with a son-in-law, the latter of whose children formed the third generation of management.
“The two sons were partners, and one of those sons was my father-in-law, so I am the fourth generation,” Sinclair said.
The other brother also had a son in the business, but the two brothers split up their partnership, which included two stores at the time.
“My father-in-law sold my wife and I the business in Madison 25 years ago,” Sinclair said. That was 10 years after he’d begun working at Montgomery’s.
Seventeen years ago, Montgomery’s opened a location in Sioux Falls, an hour south of Madison, which carries step-up price points.
“We had two small locations (in Madison), an old downtown location with three floors, kind of hard to work with; and a discount store on the edge of town,” he recalled. “We closed those and opened a new, 40,000-square-foot location 10 years ago.”
In February, Montgomery’s opened its largest store yet, 60,000 square feet in Watertown, an hour north of Madison. That location carries the same mid-price selection as in Madison.
“With Watertown, we’re well located along the state’s eastern border,” Sinclair said. “By the end of the year, we want to feel we’re running on all cylinders there. We bought for it last (High Point) Market, and we’ll fill any voids.”
Watertown has a lot of synergy with the Madison store.
“We’re advertising and merchandising the stores the same for more efficiency,” Montgomery said.
With those two stores carrying similar product, Montgomery’s now has the volume to order containers for these locations.
“We’re also going to carry patio furniture in all three stores,” Sinclair said. “We’ve been buying patio furniture in containers for the first time this year, since it’s for all three stores.”
SOME THINGS CHANGE, SOME DON’T
In his 35 years at Montgomery’s Furniture, Sinclair’s management techniques have evolved as the business has grown.
He said it’s far different running a single store with four employees—including himself—to overseeing three locations with some 85 employees.
“I used to manage by my gut when we were small, but now it’s all statistics,” Sinclair said. “We have a monthly meeting just on metrics—floor covering issues, perfect deliveries, sales, inventory levels—with each store’s management team.
“We’re looking at how to measure lots of different things—we’re going to institute a better way to track traffic.”
Montgomery’s membership in a performance group through Impact Consulting Services has pushed that along.
“The performance group really helps with that because now we’re comparing with our peers,” Sinclair noted. “When we see we have one of the lowest fabric treatment sales levels, we can figure out how to improve on that.”
The stores are moving to iPads, integrating them into their systems so sales associates don’t have to go to a computer when helping customers on the floors.
“It’s part of providing the tools they need,” Sinclair said. “There’s a lot of training and effort that goes into the tech side of our business.”
Montgomery’s also is shifting resources into e-marketing initiatives.
“My son is new-generation, so he’s really involved with this,” Sinclair noted. “He was a rep with Rowe for five years, seeing retailers of all sizes. Eric also belongs to a local group of young members of family entrepreneurial businesses.”
Regarding promotion, he added that the business is fortunate to be located in a where television advertising is affordable.
“As we’ve grown, we’ve been able to do more—that’s our biggest vehicle,” Sinclair said. “We also do newspapers, and we like local glossy magazines, because of the quality of the image we can show. We’re getting more involved in e-marketing and a little bit of direct mail and radio.”
The selling tools, the design orientation and the good working environment serve a goal that’s never changed.
“Our customers just expect more out of us in terms of quality and service,” Sinclair said. “We want to be the place to go if you want something fashion forward.
“I know of customers who are third-generation since I’ve been doing this. We depend on those people. There aren’t enough people in South Dakota that you can count on a lot of new people coming in.” HFB
April 1,
2013 by in Retail Snapshot
By Powell Slaughter
An eye for opportunity and continuing development of new market segments and services has Stacy Furniture & Design staking a claim in the highly competitive Dallas/Ft. Worth market for home furnishings.
Last year, Stacy racked up more than $42 million in sales at its Grapevine and Allen, Texas, namesake stores, an outlet store at its Flower Mound distribution center, and another location at a
former Robb & Stucky store in Plano.
Since incorporating as a retail operation in 1991—prior to that it was a wholesale furniture distributor, serving dealers in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Louisiana—Stacy has grown into a full-service home furnishings resource, building its price points into the middle and upper end, and offering full design services.
FROM WAREHOUSE TO SHOWCASE
The showrooms Stacy’s customers see today are a long way from its beginnings as a store. The retail operation opened initially in the warehouse that served the original distribution business, “selling in and through our racks,” said Dorian Stacy Sims , Stacy Furniture & Design president, and daughter of founder and owner Rick Stacy .
“This proved to be cost effective but made for very difficult conditions for our customers,” Sims said. “The heat in a warehouse during a typical Texas summer can be grueling.”
Despite the less-than-ideal shopping environment, business continued to grow at a steady, dependable pace, helped along by a wave of home developments in the market.
In 1998, Rick Stacy, who Sims called “our leader, visionary, chief ‘dreamer’” decided it was time to build a “real” store, and construction began on Stacy’s Grapevine property. That store opened in July 2000.
“His vision was a one-stop shopping experience for our customer’s home furnishing needs,” Sims said. “The Grapevine property has 40,000 square feet on the first floor dedicated to other needs for the home that Stacy’s doesn’t sell. For instance, we have Carpet One, Morrison Appliance, Yard Art, a drop-in day care facility and a restaurant as tenants.
“The Stacy Furniture showroom is on the second floor featuring 90,000-plus square feet of stained concrete and carpeted areas displaying furniture in both category specific and lifestyle vignettes. Over the years we continue to evolve with our assortment, display and price points due to the ever-changing needs of our customer. In 2003, we opened a similar, one-story footprint in Allen, Texas, and have had great success with that expansion of the market area.”
When Gabbert’s decided to leave the Texas market in late 2005, Stacy looked at purchasing its Fort Worth facility. The structure, however, didn’t fit Stacy’s needs, so while it passed on the building, it expanded its own reach with consumers by hiring the former Gabbert’s Design Studio staff.
“We opened Dorian’s Interior Design studio in Fort Worth in 2005 to expand our selection in higher-end goods and design services,” Sims said.
A new Trader Joe’s grocery leased that Fort Worth property in late 2011, and the Design Studio moved out, but design services for a higher-end clientele by that time were an established part of the retailer’s repertoire. And that meant a new brand to reflect Stacy Furniture’s abilities.
“This dynamic product assortment proved to be a very successful decision and a challenging one at the same time,” Sims said. “We began to incorporate more and more of the higher end lines, such as Henredon, Hickory Chair, Century and Sherrill into our existing Stacy Furniture stores until it became more efficient for us to incorporate the entire mix together and change our company name to simply, Stacy Furniture & Design. Today the customer experience at any Stacy Furniture & Design will host a wide variety of price points from Klaussner to Henredon, custom window treatments, whole house finish out and so much more.”
MAKING MOVES
Stacy will be moving out of the Former Robb & Stucky location in Plano this year. The retailer had a short-term lease on the property, and while Dorian said that location has been successful, the landlord has contracted to demolish the building and replace it with multi-story office towers.
“At this time, we are currently running a moving sale event and negotiating details on another property in the North Dallas area,” Sims noted. “We’re hoping to make a ‘new home’ announcement very soon.”
The product selections between the existing Grapevine and Allen stores are primarily the same, but the feel of the two showrooms is different due to interior details. The Allen store, for instance, is a former Kmart location and has very high ceilings and carpeting. The furniture showroom segment of the Grapevine store has stained walls and tile flooring over much of the area.
“Since starting our moving sale from Plano, we’ve begun to remodel and enhance the displays at our Allen location,” Sims said. “By creating a more open feel in some areas while building smaller, power display opportunity areas the customer can shop the store with ease.”
UPSCALING THE MESSAGE
Stacy Furniture & Design’s primary advertising medium is television.
“Rick and I personally appear in our commercials and try to balance between event driven offers as well as informative messages about products or services,” Sims said. “We are doing more and more social and digital media but are still trying to find the best balance to reach our customer.
“For several years now, biannually we’ve mailed a 44-page Magalog (an upscale catalog) piece that has been very successful in expressing to our customers what we really offer in a format customers are proud to keep on their cocktail table for months to come.”
The retailer also is working on scaling up the brand image.
“Our trade line has always been ‘if you’re not shopping at Stacy’s your burning money,’ but that just is too price-oriented, and that’s not how we want to compete,” Sims said. “We’re working on our marketing and branding to expand and talk to the current customer we’re trying to sell.”
Sims noted that Stacy Furniture & Design is in a very competitive market with very astute independent retailers and successful chain operations.
“It forces Stacy’s to keep on our toes, stay ahead of pricing issues and marketing opportunities, and ultimately makes us better merchants,” she said. “We are different in the respect that we offer a wider variety of price points and opportunities to fully address any customer’s needs—no matter the budget. From the chain perspective, you can never replace the value of a locally owned and operated, family business dedicated to great customer service.”
LOOKING AHEAD
Like most retailers, Stacy Furniture & Design felt the heat during the recession, but Sims is optimistic about the retailer’s prospects.
She said Stacy’s had been on a consecutive sales growth pattern for 17 years until late 2008.
“While Texas was slower to feel the fall out of the economy than other areas, we have felt it,” Sims said. “Sales did drop, significantly at times, and we had to make many changes to our operation costs and cut expenses wherever possible.
“I think the most important thing we’ve learned is, most likely, you can always keep evaluating expenses and overhead to reduce waste, and it should be a priority, not fall to the back burner. For the customer, we continued to partner with manufacturers that have shorter lead times to help manage our inventory costs but also provided the customer with a quicker delivery fulfillment.”
Sims said she’s hearing good things about the housing market picking up in the market Stacy’s Furniture & Design serves.
“By continuing to expand our advertising and fine tune our product mix message, we feel we are doing a better job at reminding them how important it is to make their house a ‘home’” she said. “Boiling it down, we are continuing to advertise as much as possible to remind people that new furniture is a good thing.” HFB
February 1,
2013 by in Retail Snapshot
By Powell Slaughter
Toronto furniture retailer Decorium is blending big selection, looks at a value and a family touch to create a home furnishings destination for Canada’s largest metropolitan area.
A constantly changing showroom, marketing that verges on “guerilla” and a willingness to change have Decorium making moves this year.
A new location in a prime Toronto shopping district and a high-end gallery at its existing store has the family owned retailer optimistic for the year to come.
A DEVELOPING STORY
Decorium’s roots trace to the manufacturing operation that Steve’s grandfather, David Forberg, started when he immigrated to Canada from Europe.
He began manufacturing dinettes in the early 1950s, becoming one of the countries largest producers in the category. Forberg’s father, Joe Forberg, had joined the business, and David suggested opening a retail operation. A few years later, Joe’s brother came on board, and the Grand Designs retail brand grew to include eight stores.
In 1986, the family started Decorium as an import business for the design trade, offering chairs, chests, armoires and accent pieces from Italy, Spain, the United States and Asia. In the early 1990s, a recession in Canada and new tax laws put a squeeze on Grand Designs, which led the family to close the eight stores and turn Decorium into a retail business, located in what had previously served as the distribution center for Grand Designs.
CREATING A DESTINATION
As a retail operation, Decorium started in 5,000 square feet of the facility, but quickly expanded.
“Being open to the public, it took on a new life,” said Steve Forberg. “Now we’re a full-service store, with a full range of styles from classic traditional to contemporary to modern to glamour, to leather and fabric upholstery to rugs and accents. We have 700 rugs on display in the store.”
With one exception, Decorium doesn’t brand any manufacturers. Everything in the store is a “Decorium” item.
“Our customers say, ‘I bought this Decorium sofa,’ or ‘I bought a Decorium dining room,’” Forberg said. “We are the brand.
“The only thing we brand separately in the store is HGTV (product).”
On the floor, Decorium wants customers to be wowed by selection and understand they’ve arrived at a true shopping destination with outstanding looks at a value.
“We want them to feel they’re in a unique environment that offers a good customer experience,” Forberg said, “with high-end looks at accessible prices.”
Decorium also encourages customers to keep coming back to see what’s new.
“We’re constantly shifting product in our 60,000-square-foot showroom to make it fresh for the customer and keep it fresh for our sales staff,” Forberg said. “We have 60 to 100 new items on the floor each week. We have customers who come in monthly to see what’s new and fresh, and how things are laid out.”
REACHING OUT
Decorium relies on two taglines in its marketing: “Definitely—Decorium” and “Just what you’re looking for in a furniture store.”
“It’s a one-stop shop. In our advertising we ask why visit five stores when you can visit five in one,” Forberg said. “We’re large enough to move a lot of product, and we’re small enough to care.”
In addition to radio, magazine and direct mail, Decorium relies a lot on what Forberg called non-traditional advertising.
Commuters in the Toronto area see Decorium’s message via outdoor advertising on bridges, bus shelters and in the subway system.
“My philosophy is to try to advertise where others aren’t,” Forberg said. “I like to swim in a pool where no one else is swimming. Once people start swimming with me, I try to jump out of that pool and into another one.”
A HIGH-END MOVE
Decorium’s new store is located on Toronto’s Yonge Street in the upscale Rosedale area. Most surrounding stores don’t run more than a couple thousand square feet, so Decorium’s 9,000 square feet there make a statement. Plus, the location was home to other furnishings retail operations, so Decorium will be filling a gap.
“It’s a trendy part of the city,” Forberg said. “The new store on Yonge Street is on the longest street in North America. It runs from Lake Ontario to the Northwest Territories. In Toronto, it’s the street to be—it’s like being on Rodeo Drive.”
(Check this link for Yonge Street’s significance in Canada: En.Wikipedia.org/Wiki/Yonge_Street)
Renovations are nearing completion, and after a scheduled soft opening later this month, Decorium will hold a grand opening event in April.
“That store offer’s the fashion and style our brand’s known fore but it’s in more of a boutique setting,” Forberg said. “There’s more layering, more accessories, and overall it’s a little more high-end.”
This past fall, Decorium also opened a 5,000-square-foot high-end gallery at the main store branded as “Signature Collection by Decorium.”
The space features a decidedly upscale product selection, complemented with fixtures such as crown molding, hardwood floors and wainscoting.
“We’ve partnered with some factories for some exclusives that are really unique and high-end,” Forberg said.
WHAT LIES AHEAD
“Business was challenging, obviously in 2008 and 2009,” Forberg said.
Sales leveled in 2010, though, and he reports double-digit growth for the past two years.
“There’s an analogy I like to use,” Forberg said. “We’re like a retractable roof on a stadium. As a family business, we can open it and close it as needed. We’re hands on, we can watch our expenses, and we live and breathe the business.”
Decorium’s making moves, so Forberg feels pretty good about what lies ahead for furniture retailing in general and his family’s business in particular.
“If we listen to the news, how things are hard, we can get complacent and stand still,” he said. “We’re not going to let the economy and the news people tell us times are tough and that we need to hunker down.
“We know when we have to hunker down, and we can when we need to. We’re opening a new store, we’re taking risks, and I think those who are willing to make a leap of faith are the ones who’ll be successful.” HFB
Free Time
Decorium co-CEO Steve Forberg is a father of two boys—10 and 12—and is coming up on his 15th anniversary of marriage.
Away from the store, he enjoys family time, both at home and on the road.
“We love to travel as a family,” Forberg said.
A hockey forward in his younger days, Forberg still spends time on the ice.
“I coach both my boys in hockey, and in my spare time I like playing hockey and golf,” he said.
Decorium at a Glance
• Founded in July 1986.
• Flagship location is a 100,000-square-foot store and distribution center in Toronto with a 60,000-square-foot showroom and 40,000-square-foot warehouse
• Opening a 9,000-square-foot location on Toronto’s Yonge Street in mid-February, with grand opening set for early April.
• Employees: 64
• Key management: Steve Forberg, and brother, Howard Forberg , co-CEOs; father, Joe Forberg, “ambassador”; Danny Abladi, distribution center manager; Tara Lindsay , advertising manager/buyer; Phil Raso, sales manager; Gabriella Mocanu, controller; Maribeth Bautista, customer care manager.
• Annual revenue: $10-20 million
• Web site: Decorium .com