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Traditions Classic Home Furnishings
October 10,
2012 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in on October 2012
A key to Traditions Classics growth has been its ability to get on its high-end clienteles bee path.
Were very small and we take that high-end boutique approach to a furniture store, said President Suzanne Schumann, who owns the three-store operation with husband, Mike. Our store is always in motion. Since were happy to sell off the floor, from week to week well see 20 to 30 pieces leave. The result is customers stop in to see whats new.
Mike added that customers coming in a month after their last visit wont see something a little different, its completely different.
The atmospheres the same, but at least half the items werent on the floor the first time you came in, he said. And, if it was on the floor earlier, its not in the same place in the store, not in the same vignette. Our target customers are affluent women, and weve gotten on their regular circuit along with their hairdresser. People come into our store when theyre recreationally shopping.
The advantage to that is though our stores average 3,000 square feet, effectively theyre much larger. The amount of product we can expose to our customers is two or three times the square footage we have.
Keeping the floors that fresh is a challenge.
What you have to understand is that what we do involves an incredible amount of work, Mike said. Every Wednesday, for example, in our Naples (Fla.) store, guys from the warehouse are juggling the store layout for two to three hours in the morning. And its not just accessoriesits large items, moving sectionals and cases around. Suzanne and her staff spend the rest of the day re-merchandising the store.
The model took some figuring out on vendors part as well, and Mike said it took some convincing on the Schumanns part.
Most vendors have standard rules on how much floor space has to be dedicated to their line, and some minimums are larger than one of our entire stores, he said.
Our vendors, over the years, have gotten to understand our model and bent the rules.
A commitment to maintaining its merchandising philosophyand a conservative attitude toward debthelped the store during the recession. While many stores kept showing the same merchandise, Traditions Classic always had a new look to interest the shoppers that were out there.
We got a lot of gray hair and more wrinkles, Suzanne said of the downturn. We went very, very lean on inventory, but continued to change out the floor constantly.
The Schumanns also had ways to keep employee spirits up during downtime.
We took the opportunity to freshen the stores, Suzanne said. In Naples, they said its quiet, well just paint the store. They took the lead, and everyone ran with it. We kept the energy going just by keeping ourselves moving.