A Total Approach

January 17, 2012  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on January 18, 2012 Tifton, Ga.-based Turner€™s Fine Furniture and sister retailer Turner€™s Budget Furniture has a dual-attach approach to meeting its customers€™ needs with both a middle- to upper-end group of stores and a family of lower-priced stores.

The retailer uses area rugs as a boost to its bottom line.

Merchandised throughout the stores within vignettes, the rugs serve as an anchor in displays and often €œsell themselves€ as consumers are shopping. Rugs have always been a part of the stores€™ merchandising strategy, and continue to play a big role.

Earlier this month, we caught up with Wade Young, marketing manager for Turner€™s, to get his thoughts on incorporating rugs into the furntiure retailing business.

Q What approach does the Turner family of stores take in selling rugs?
Our goal at Turner€™s is to provide the best-looking, best quality product at the lowest possible price to our customer and rugs are no different.
It is rare that we can justify the cost of €˜promotion€™ for this category, except through e-mail or the Internet.

Q How does selling rugs differ from other categories in your stores in terms of merchandising and promotion?
Well obviously rugs are great for increasing the bottom line on tickets. Customers come in and they see a great living room group and the area rug underneath it. Our merchandising people do a great job of picking just the right rug to match the rest of the vignette. They really do a great job of it.

Q How do you define rugs€™ role in your operation€™s business plan?
As I mentioned earlier, it adds incrementally to our overall business. Often the customer will see a vignette they like and buy the whole €œpackage€ including the area rug because it all just looks so good together.

Q Can you share a few dos in rug merchandising throughout your store?
We display the rugs on the floors underneath the furniture so the customer gets a feel for what it might look like in their home. We do have some that are hanging in other areas but we find the customers are more likely to buy those they see in use in our vignettes.

Q Have you always sold rugs as a part of your merchandising strategy? Have you shifted your strategy in any way? If so, what are you doing differently?
Our strategy really hasn€™t been that much different over the years, but certainly the varieties of rugs we carry have grown.

Q How do you differentiate Turner€™s rug selection from other retailers in the trading area that sell area rugs?
One thing we have going for us is our buying power. We are able to get a GREAT selection of rugs that outstrips many of our competitors€™ selections. A few times a year we will partner with a manufacturer and have a tent sale of rugs. We will literally have thousands of rugs on display and the customers really seem to love those sales.

Q What selling techniques seem to work best among your sales team?
Obviously completing the vignettes helps a lot with rug sales, but beyond that our free in-home design service has really helped us in this area. Our designers may take a rug out to a customer€™s home just to try it in a room they may be working on and often times the rug stays with the customer once they see what it does for their home. HFB