Daily News Archive
Brought to you by Home Furnishings Business
The Arrangement
October 10,
2012 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in on October 2012
When the economy goes South, businesses look to cut costs, and advertising can be one of the first items on the chopping blockbut not at The Arrangement.
The recent recession handed The Arrangement a one-two punch: First, a sour economy put a dent on consumer appetites for home furnishings; second, the retailers next-door neighbors on both sides of its Dallas store, locations for Bombay Co. and Linens n Things, shut their doors.
We pretty much lost the walk-ins, said Katherine Snedeker, who goes by the title chief of The Arrangement, which has a location in Houston that opened to complement the Dallas store. The spaces on either side of us were vacant for three years. We were in this strip center sitting between two big holes.
Snedekers response: Increase advertising.
Fortunately, The Arrangement had a compelling story to tell. Snedeker had built a niche in offering a lot of products customers literally cant find anywhere else by custom-ordering most of what they see in the stores.
Our focus was to keep our clients and keep ourselves in business, so the priority was to get more unique product and make ourselves more meaningful to the clients we had, Snedeker said.
Customers have responded: Sales are tracking to reach near $15 million this year, up around 20 percent from 2011, at The Arrangements 15,000-square-foot location in Dallas and 10,000-square-foot Houston store.
Both stores share bespoke atmosphere, something easier said than done.
We sell off the floor. Its very complicated and a lot of work, Snedeker said. Well probably run two trucks (from the warehouse) today to get the floor ready for tomorrow morning.
We have a lot of one-of-a-kind pieces. With the economy, people arent stocking so much, and we have an instant-gratification clientelethey want it right now. You have to have more inventory to pull it off. We want product with an atmosphere of magic, elusiveness, something you havent seen anywhere else.
While maybe 15 percent of The Arrangements sales are special orders from customers, in essence most of what one sees on its floors is special orderfrom the retailer itself.
We do a huge amount of custom ordering, Snedeker noted. We pick our leathers, our fabrics, our styles. When I bought out my partner in 2004, there was a deliberate effort to go high-end with a unique look. We no longer order product as-is from vendors.
The customers end up liking what they see on our floor as it is because they havent seen it anywhere else. We create our own bespoke product.
Inventory and constant re-stocking of floors arent the only challenges of The Arrangements merchandising scheme.
Its a lot more work, and a lot more investigation, cherry picking of lines, and the vendors dont always like that, Snedeker said. Were probably going to go into custom building with some vendorswe have to have unique product.
The retailer takes its well customize for you approach to its clients doorstep.
We do house calls differently than just about anyone, Snedeker said. Well load up furniture and accessories, and take it to the house. We put it in place and take back what the client doesnt want to keep.
We create a complete environment. One client had all this wood from and old barn that we used as art.
The client was pleasantly surprised with the result: Hed had all this amazing material and hadnt known what to do with it, Snedeker said.