Daily News Archive
Brought to you by Home Furnishings Business
February 28,
2007 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in Advertising on March 2007
Two years ago, Ethan Allen was facing heavy criticism from financial analysts—and even a few of its store owners—over its decision to halt discount sales at its 307 stores at a time when the entire furniture industry was in a slump and the company’s same-store sales had dipped 6 percent.
Today, rival retailers point to Ethan Allen’s “everyday best price” strategy as a success story in an industry still dominated by discount sales. Ethan Allen Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Farooq Kathwari said the move to a no-sales strategy was a difficult transition, but the change is delivering numerous benefits to the company.
“It’s human nature. People are going to be skeptics,” Kathwari said in a Jan. 17 interview. “But, we’ve not heard criticism over the past year and a half either from the analysts or from our retail network.”
The company posted record sales of $1.066 billion (a 12.4 percent increase) in its most recent full fiscal year, which ended in July. In late January, the company reported that net delivered sales for its retail division were down 1.4 percent in its second quarter—during what Kathwari called a soft period for furniture retailers.
Sales Delayed Purchases
Prior to the switch to an everyday best price strategy, Ethan Allen held six major sales a year. In each sale, 30 percent of a store’s selection would be marked down 10 percent to 12 percent, and sale items typically accounted for up to three quarters of a store’s sales during those events. At the time, Kathwari said the sales actually caused customers to delay purchases until the next sale period. “Our design consultants were spending too much time trying to figure out how to provide discounts rather than being truly productive,” he said in a 2005 interview.
In January he said, “It has focused our employees on providing solutions. Now, our design consultants working with the customers say, ‘All of this product is available to you at the best value we can offer you, so let’s focus on what you need.’”
While Ethan Allen still sells floor samples and discontinued items at a discount, customers no longer delay purchases in anticipation of those types of markdowns. Kathwari said the strategy has helped streamline the company’s operations. “Our inventories have come down at a time when reduced sales across the industry have caused inventories to increase at most furniture retailers. It’s given us a better ability to forecast (demand), so it’s made our manufacturing more efficient, too.”
Lower Prices Without Sales
Of course, Ethan Allen isn’t the only retailer with a no-sales strategy. Chains like City Furniture in Tamarac, Fla., and Bob’s Discount Furniture in Southington, Conn., have employed a similar strategy for decades. “The benefit to everyday pricing is it’s much more efficient,” City Furniture President Keith Koenig said. “We can run at lower margins with lower prices every day than retailers who go up and down all the time.”
Koenig said he studied various pricing strategies during the ‘80s as he prepared to transition City, which had been a water bed specialist, into a full-line furniture chain that now has 14 stores. “The advantage to being a retailer that goes on sale and off sale is it creates a lot of urgency for the sale event,” he said. “But it can also postpone demand because some people will always wait for that item to go on sale. Plus, some retailers get so sale-oriented that their business is almost non-existent when they’re’ not having a sale.”
In his research, Koenig said he became convinced to go with an everyday price model because he believes supply chain efficiencies can create more savings than events that create unpredictable rates of sale. “If you advertise a $199 product at $99, how can you accurately predict the rate of sale? And, if you can’t keep that sale item in stock, you’ll wind up with the kind of low customer satisfaction scores that you see so often in the home furnishings industry.”
Creating Demand Without Sales
So how do you get customers into the store without holding percentage-off sales? Ethan Allen relies on a strong marketing program that includes national television advertising and a design magazine that’s mailed to more than 5 million households four times per year. Plus, Kathwari said, the company relies on the relationships its 3,000 design consultants form with customers. “As with any good professional, referrals become an important part of the business,” he said.
Putting the focus on “solutions” rather than sales has also helped those design consultants increase the number of visits they make to customer’s homes, a long-time focus for Ethan Allen. “It develops relationships and helps them provide the right kind of solutions,” said Kathwari, who said house calls account for more than 50 percent of the company’s sales. “Providing solutions without house calls is like trying to fix a car without looking at it in person.”
Chief Recruiting Officer
He said the new strategy has required the company to strengthen the quality of Ethan Allen’s associates. As a result, Kathwari said he took on the additional title of “chief recruiting officer” 15 months ago. “I have personally approved the hiring or promotions of more than 1,500 associates in our retail division,” he said. “The reason I’m doing this is that (associates) are the critical factor in the implementation of this program.”
The focus of City Furniture’s advertising is often on finance offers and “offering the best value on product,” along with offering a large selection of products that are ready for same-day delivery.
Kathwari said Ethan Allen has not been tempted to return to a sales strategy, even as furniture sales have dipped across the industry over the past six months. “To me, the most gratifying thing in the past few months is that even when business has been tough, our associates keep telling us that this policy makes sense.”
February 28,
2007 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Advertising on March 2007
Furniture retailers in other parts of the country might not feel too much sympathy for dealers in the lucrative Florida market, but sometimes there’s trouble even in paradise, especially in the past couple of years.
“We’ve had a triple whammy,” said Don Marks, chief executive officer of W.S. Badcock Corp. of Florida, the state with the largest share of the company’s 320-strong dealer network. “It had been the hottest real estate market in the United States, but that’s fallen way down. Second, Florida has property taxes, exemptions and caps that are non-transferable, and that prevents people from selling their houses. Third, after all the hurricanes, homeowners’ insurance in some cases has tripled.”
Add to that the fact that even before the furniture retail environment there softened, Florida was, despite its sales potential for dealers, a fiercely competitive state in which to operate a furniture store.
“We’re still showing flat to single-digit increase in sales, though,” Marks noted. “And financing is one of the tools we’ve used to maintain business.”
With the growth of its more upscale Badcock &more format, which now accounts for 240 locations, Mulberry, Fla.-based Badcock uses a lower-key approach to promoting financing than in the past, but it remains an important method for driving traffic, Marks said.
Finding the Right Fit
Finance promotions can be a tricky proposition for furniture retailers, though some make their living that way, and how big a part of the business it is often boils down to price point. While there aren’t too many dealers demanding cash on the barrel before they deliver the goods, credit promotions do play a more important role in making the sale at promotional and middle price points.
A big decision for many retailers is whether to keep their financing in house or farm it out to a third-party specialist. Both options hold their attractions, depending upon a retailer’s business model, and many incorporate a mix of their own paper and a third-party option.
CitiFinancial has more than 30,000 retailers using its third-party financing services at some level, said Darrell Owens, director of client management for CitiFinancial Retail Services.
“Those include home furnishings, appliances, flooring (and) electronics, and a lot of those overlap,” he said, noting that third-party financing lets retailers concentrate on merchandising.
“The retailer immediately frees up cash flow, instead of carrying the customer’s balance,” Owens said, describing the third-party arrangement’s value equation. “That customer takes the furniture home, but you don’t get all your money if you’re providing the credit. If you go with a company like ours, you get the payment immediately” since CitiFinancial funds the retailer within 48 hours of the purchase.
The same holds true for deferred interest promotions designed to get customers in the door.
“And when customers get approved, we’ll maintain that customer base for the retailer,” Owens added. “If we’ve approved a $5,000 line (of credit) and the customer has spent only $2,500, that’s an opportunity for another sale to someone the retailer knows can afford the purchase. It’s easier to sell to an existing customer than someone brand new.”
CitiFinancial also will imprint a custom message on customer billing statements at no charge to retailers, allowing them to turn their statements into marketing opportunities and present special discounts or announcements to increase add-on business; offer direct mail to existing credit customers to make additional purchases; and provide customized point-of-sale material to help retailers advertise financing, special promotions or sales.
Still, some dealers are more comfortable with their own credit programs. For example, financed purchases account for around 90 percent of business at Chicago-area retailer Continental Furniture’s three stores, which write their own paper for consumer financing. Keeping that financing process in-house is a good fit for the retailer’s price point (promotional) and target market—90 percent of Continental’s customers are Hispanic—according to President Mitch Portugal.
“Hispanic customers rely a lot on credit, and buying on credit is well-accepted in that community,” he said. While Continental has always handled its own credit approvals, Portugal said he couldn’t really address the situation of retailers who’ve shifted that function to a third party, but he did say keeping financing in-house has proved beneficial to his specific operation in several ways.
“First, a lot of our customers, at least two-thirds, prefer to come into the stores to make their payment, and that provides us an opportunity to build on an existing relationship on a monthly basis, versus them sending a check to a third party,” Portugal noted. “We get an opportunity to talk, to have some social conversation, and show them new items on the floor. We can ask which room they’re thinking about for their next purchase.”
Around 3 percent of the traffic coming into Continental’s stores to make payments end up buying something else on the spot, he adds, saying “For us, that’s just extra business.”
Total control over which customers receive credit approval is another plus. Portugal believes that writing his own paper allows him to make selective judgment calls on consumers who might get turned down by a third-party finance.
“I don’t want to say that we’re way more lenient than other financiers, but it’s worked for us,” he said. “We average around 89 percent approval, and it’s our call to make.”
A third benefit Portugal cites—one that might strike some retailers who don’t have longstanding credit relations as a negative—is that customers feel more comfortable doing business with someone they know in case they hit a financial bump.
“If they fall behind, they feel they have the relationship built to the point they can come in and say they might be a little late from time to time,” he said. “The fear factor isn’t there that they’d have if they weren’t dealing with our store.”
Bottom line at Continental: “We’re in promotional furniture, and our average sale is $1,600, and without financing that might be $900 at best,” Portugal said. “With a third party, you can get your hands on cash more quickly and it’s probably easier to expand your business, but our way works for us.”
A Blended Strategy
Some retailers find that blending in-house financing with a third-party option expands their reach in attracting a broader range of consumers. The key there is to find the right proportion to fit a particular business model.
Ashley HomeStores of Charlotte, N.C., and Greenville, S.C., financed around 48 percent of sales in 2006 and year-to-date 2007. Of that, 93 percent is through its third-party arrangement with CitiFinancial.
“We have an in-house financing program for those who can’t be approved through CitiFi,” said Celeste Bundy, advertising manager, who noted that in-house credit accounted for less than 3 percent of sales last year.
Twice a year, Ashley of Charlotte and Greenville offers a major credit promotion, such as no interest till 2011, and no payment till 2008.
“Our sales during those months are up 20 percent to 25 percent versus when we promote, say, no payments/no interest for 12 months,” Bundy said. “We try to split our promotional efforts 50-50—this month, everything might be focused on financing; next month it’s all about product in our advertising.”
In her stores’ case, Bundy said the third-party option is always the first recourse, since the retailer just prefers to avoid spending too much time managing a financing business.
“We also keep that in-house financing as separate as possible from the store operations,” she said. “It’s set up as a completely separate company. I don’t want to be in the business of repossessing furniture if someone isn’t making payments.”
On the other hand, some stores that finance most credit sales in-house find that a third-party program provides a valuable option for some shoppers.
Badcock, for example, has complemented its in-house financing with a third-party offering through Household Finance for the past two years. The move has helped drive traffic, Marks said, and offers customers terms Badcock didn’t want to carry with its own consumer credit.
“We wrote our own paper for 80 years, and have one of the oldest consumer financing programs in the country,” he said. “Our own program has some very good terms such as 12 months, same as cash. We offer three months and six months, too.”
Problem was, the company needed something to counter the deluge of no-no-no financing competitors offered to consumers in its markets. Badcock, however, didn’t want to use its in-house financing for no-no-no terms that could end up creating no communication with the customer for 18 months.
“We didn’t want to carry those terms, but we wanted to play in that marketplace, because the consumer is used to hearing ‘no-no-no,’” Marks said.
While Badcock stores typically finance between 65 percent and 75 percent of total sales, only 10 percent of those credit sales are through its third-party arrangement, and Marks pointed out that no-no-no terms aren’t promoted on the sales floor itself.
“The goal of a no-no-no is to bring people into the store, and it opens the door to a sale, but we wait for the customer to ask about it, or use it as a closing tool,” he said.
Extended financing terms also have appeal for home-buyers, Marks noted.
“Say I buy a new house—I need to buy furniture, but I also need to do other things, maybe put in my lawn,” he said. “I’m in a cash-poor position now, but I know that in 24 months I’ll be fine.”
February 28,
2007 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Case Goods on March 2007
Lifestyle Enterprise Chairman William Hsieh is shaking up High Point—and the worldwide furniture industry—with a brash style and a fierce determination to bring a new approach to the way furniture is marketed. He’s won attention—and ruffled plenty of feathers—with high-profile ads for $99 sofas, $299 bedrooms and other eye-popping deals.
With the Forbidden City Furniture Show, he’s awakened High Point’s showroom buildings from their normal winter slumbers by flying in more than 500 furniture retailers for a three-day celebration that has become an annual January event. In nightly drawings, a lucky buyer drives away in either a BMW or a Mercedes-Benz convertible. This year, more than 60 High Point showrooms opened their doors to the hundreds of buyers who came to town to buy from Hsieh.
A native of Taiwan, Hsieh became a major furniture player in the ‘70s, selling so-called “stop-sign” dining tables to large furniture retailers with his previous company, Datong. He stepped away from that pioneering import company to serve for five years as a Congressman in Taiwan before returning to the U.S. furniture industry—and High Point—with Lifestyle Enterprise in 1997.
Well on its way to becoming a $1 billion company—with ambitions to become much larger than that—Lifestyle Enterprise has a major global presence. It exhibits at most major furniture markets across the globe, and it’s dramatically expanding its presence in High Point. Over the next two years, Lifestyle will build a 110,000-square-foot addition to its Forbidden City showroom complex that Hsieh promises will be unlike anything the industry has ever seen.
You’ve created a lot of excitement in High Point with your second Forbidden City Show. Are you aware that it already ranks as perhaps the industry’s largest single-vendor event?I don’t know if it’s the largest, but I think we’ve generated a lot of traffic and, most importantly, excitement. We’ve proved again that being a good furniture marketing company doesn’t need to be that hard. It can be a lot of fun. We want to bring that to the furniture industry, so it’s not only about just buying, selling, price, inventory and all of those things. I think it is time for this industry to be just as exciting as other industries.
What can you tell us about the commitment you’re making to High Point with the $10 million expansion of the Forbidden City showroom complex on Commerce Street that’s set to open in 2009? It may cost more than that. I’ve already talked about the plans with our architect. I’m not just going to make this a furniture showroom. I want the new Forbidden City to be about 60 percent furniture showroom and 40 percent museum. It’s going to be more than 100,000 square feet in a three-and-a-half story building. But it’s going to include some beautiful Chinese artifacts and some reproductions. Its atmosphere will make furniture shopping more fun and relaxing. Five years from now, it’s possible that 70 percent of the world’s manufacturing base will be in China and another 20 percent will be in Southeast Asia. It’s already that way in other industries. PCs, iPods and Nike shoes are almost all made in Asia, and furniture will eventually be the same way. Since the furniture is made in Asia, we want to show some of the classic (antiques) that are part of that heritage. The Forbidden City (in Beijing) is a symbol of Asia and the royal family, both of which represent the kinds of beautiful, luxurious furniture China has produced throughout its history. We’ve already invited public groups and schools in High Point to use our Forbidden City showroom for special events. I have a dream to create the biggest, most beautiful museum of Chinese artifacts outside of China to serve as a link between China and the U.S., which are partners in so many ways.
City officials in High Point have said with a great deal of pride that you could hold the Forbidden City Furniture show anywhere in the world, so why is it in High Point? High Point has had a market for nearly 100 years, and it’s the world’s busiest furniture event. Twenty-five years ago when I first came here with my (prior) company, Datong, we were just getting started in the industry. We just wanted to find American customers for the kitchen tables and the stop-sign tables we made (in Taiwan), and we found that here. High Point has faced a lot of challenges over the past 25 years from shows in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas and now Las Vegas. High Point can continue to get stronger as long as it can give people excitement and fun. It’s all about creating demand. For Lifestyle, if we provide products to the market, retailers will continue to come here to High Point. Location is not really important. We’re not dependent on any show, whether it be in High Point or Cologne (Germany). How good you are is what’s become even more important.
Lifestyle is growing at 50 percent a year. How close are you to becoming a $1 billion company?
We have increased by more than 50 percent a year for the past six years. We’re still very small (in relation to some of the industry’s biggest companies), but we have a format, a strategy and a philosophy that I think will enable us to become a $1 billion company within two years. We also have additional, more aggressive targets. Bear in mind that Apple has 90 percent market share for MP3 players, Nokia has 30 percent market share (in cellular phones) and Nike has 37 percent of the world’s sports shoes market. We want to learn from those companies. We want retailers to get whatever they want from Lifestyle at the shows we participate in or, in the future, through a dot-com platform that’s in the early planning stages.
You gave away a BMW and a Mercedes Benz at the Forbidden City Show. Can the retailers who are here learn something from how that kind of giveaway promotes excitement? They should. When you look at other industries, even the airline industry promotes during slow periods with “Buy One, Get One Free” deals. We’ve given away free floor samples, which is something my people have told me is an incentive that few, if any, furniture companies have offered before. Fifteen years ago, Rooms To Go first offered customers no down payment, no interest and no payments for a year. Nobody had ever done that before, but now, everyone is doing it.
Flying retailers to High Point, giving away cars and floor samples must be expensive.
It’s a festival and a celebration of all the retailers who partner with Lifestyle. At the first Forbidden City Furniture Show, we really exceeded our sales expectations, but it did cost a lot. The free floor samples accounted for more than two-thirds of the cost. Airfare and hotels were the smallest part of the expense. This year, we’re on track to show a sales increase over the first show of well over 50 percent. It will cost me even more than last year, but I see it as an investment. Our message to American retailers is that we’ll always be at their service with the best products at the best prices and with the best terms to help them generate more business and make more money.
Are you aware how much some of your rivals complain about some of your more aggressive deals, especially the $99 sofas and beds you promoted during 2006? Yes. Let me tell you a story about that. The last two times Morty Seaman (of Rooms To Go) visited our showroom (in High Point), the first sentence out of his mouth was “William, they all hate you out there!” The ($99 ads) really created a lot of complaints. Even some existing customers weren’t happy because they’re afraid (nearby competitors) will do business with us. Potential customers dislike us because our prices make some of their products too expensive. My competitors feel we give them a hard time (with those promotions). The factories that don’t supply us dislike us, too, because their customers are asking them, “Why can Lifestyle sell it for $99 and we have to charge $129?” We’re not really a promotional company. We have our high-end Forbidden City line and Shanghai Leather. When Apple started selling the iPod Shuffle for $99 two years ago, nobody accused them of being a promotional or cheap company. If no one complains about Apple’s $99 iPods, why should they complain about my $99 beds? We create more business for retailers because customers can buy more. They’re spending more money. Eventually, everyone in the industry will get better and (industrywide) sales will increase as a result. The whole industry will be more alive and will be creating more excitement for the retailer, and consumers will buy even more. HFB
February 28,
2007 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Case Goods on March 2007
Steve Lora and John Perez opened MOTIF Modern Living just over a year ago, and though they’re not willing to disclose hard numbers, they’re also not too shy to brag that they’re raking it in.
“It makes my hair stand on end,” said Lora, who will go so far as to say that the 21,000-square-foot store just south of Austin made “millions,” and “double what we told the bank we would make.”
Lora, president of the company, expects to open a second Texas location this year, and four more Texas locations within the next five years. This rapid expansion plan wasn’t born of a successful first year in business. Lora had the five new locations scouted out even before this first store opened. But they are only a pittance of what he predicts for MOTIF. He sees it replicating itself nationally to “dozens and dozens” of stores. “I want to grow it and grow it and grow it and grow it and grow it,” he said.
This will happen, he continued, on the strength of its merchandise and prices, but also on its character.
“We think of ourselves as a lifestyle retailer and not as a furniture store,” Lora said. “Now, of course, furniture is the bulk of what we sell, but the way that it’s presented, it’s much more akin to, say, Pottery Barn, where if you like this lifestyle, this contemporary modern look, then everything that you need is available at MOTIF. And that’s what we’re about. That’s why people drive from so far away, because they want that look.”
The MOTIF Mantra
“That look” is sleek and warm. Contemporary can often feel cold, Lora said. But MOTIF shies away from chrome and other materials that don’t provide much visual comfort. Perez, vice president and buyer, has a favorite color that appears throughout MOTIF—chocolate brown. The store’s relaxing, world music soundtrack compliments arrangements of tropical flowers and displays of moving water.
It also compliments an attitude that Lora and Perez believe is as attractive as their furniture—the sense of inclusiveness and progressiveness for which nearby Austin, where Lora and Perez make their home, is famous. MOTIF actively recruits minorities and women, and touts its recycling program on its Web site.
“We’re a very Hispanic-friendly company, and we try to hire people who are bilingual. It’s a respectful thing for us and where we are located,” said Lora. “We want to communicate with people in a language they prefer, not the language we prefer.” The company advertises in two languages. It buys ads, for example, in newspapers in Monterrey, Mexico—a few hours drive over the border. Perez, who was born in Mexico and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, is a native Spanish speaker. Lora also speaks Spanish, and engages customers in the language every day.
Lora also talks about the store as “democractic.” All employees, including him and Perez, wear the periwinkle blue polo shirt with the MOTIF logo, designed by Lora, and denim jeans. Perez said he and Lora have their own version of the phrase: “The customer comes first.” At MOTIF, it’s “our employees come first.”
“If they’re not happy, they’re not going to treat our customers in a happy manner, and then nobody is happy,” said Perez.
Among the benefits offered employees are a 401K plan and health insurance, whether the employee works full time or part time. And early on, Lora and Perez decided that salespeople would not work on commission. Elsewhere, they had seen it breed a competitiveness that did not so much boost sales as fuel resentments. Lora and Perez believe they’ve found a better way to motivate: gift cards.
“We give a lot of gift cards,” said Lora. When employees meet their daily goal, they get a gift card, or $50. When the store makes its daily goal, every employee gets a $25 gift card. The people in the warehouse—9,000 square feet on the same property—are always asking how the people on the floor are doing, and who is in the lead, because the first person to make his or her goal gets to decide where everybody’s gift card will come from. (Common choices include Target and grocery stores.)
Then there are the out-of-the-blue surprises for employees, far more imaginative and appreciated than a cake on a birthday. “One of our employees just moved into a house. We gave her a king-size bed and Turkish towels. Another guy bought a house—we bought him all the paint for it.”
The Furniture Aesthetic
If Perez and Lora understand people, they also know furniture. They both worked at the same furniture company—Perez as director of merchandising and Lora as director of marketing—for years, 11 and two respectively. During those last years, they realized that between the two of them, they had 90 percent of what they needed to go into business for themselves.
Perez also grew up in retail. His family owned several stores in Eagle Pass, including clothing and bridal stores. “I’ve been doing store window displays since I was 9,” he said. In college, he studied drafting. Lora’s father is a modern architect in New Orleans who raised his children in a house filled with Danish modern furniture. In college, Lora studied art and design. He then earned an MBA.
The two drew up a business plan, and for capital drew upon Perez’s 401K, Lora’s savings, and a bank loan. In early 2005, they spied a location at the San Marcos Prime Outlets, 30 miles south of Austin, and one of Texas’ most popular tourist attractions. But the mall didn’t want them. In February 2005, they found a building under construction on I-35, the road to the mall. Each day, 84,000 cars pass the spot.
Windows and skylights sold them on the store. MOTIF is infused with light. “I read somewhere that retail sales improve 20 percent with natural light,” said Lora. He and Perez built the store to take best advantage of the bright, airy space. The ceilings are 30 feet high, with exposed beams, and the floor is stained concrete. They didn’t construct interior walls, but installed 25 glass partitions, 10-feet by 10-feet each, that diffuse sunshine and allow salespeople to keep an eye on customers. “The store looks like a loft,” Lora said.
The building’s exterior was completed in July of 2005, its interior in the fall, and it opened for business in December of that year.
Typically, MOTIF shows 35 vignettes and prices them to sell. Lora and Perez buy containers, and close-outs. They negotiate aggressively to keep prices down. Like the sprawling San Marcos complex down the road, they are an outlet. And they love it when customers ask if their main store is in New York. No, they say, it’s all right here, in Kyle, Texas. But they are on track to open a second store, within driving distance from the first, this spring. Currently, they draw 65 percent of their traffic from the Austin area, and 25 percent from San Antonio, about an hour’s drive.
Selling Online
MOTIF, however, has already extended its reach beyond Texas, with an online business that accounts for about half a percent of sales. But Perez and Lora see much potential in the Internet.
“There’s a huge misconception about e-business and furniture,” Lora said. “A lot of people think you can’t sell furniture online, that you have to sit in it before you buy it. But with younger people, I don’t think that even crosses their minds.”
Shipping across the nation presents challenges, but not insurmountable ones, said Lora. For small items, MOTIF uses UPS, and delivers larger items by freight. It is hard for some customers to imagine an 18-wheeler pulling up at their curb to deliver a single large item, but the cost seems far more manageable if a roomful of furniture is delivered, Lora said.
He and Perez are trying to grow their e-business by improving an already easy-to-use Web site, which was recently nominated for a Webby award. “When you Google ‘affordable contemporary furniture,’ we come up fast,” said Lora, who used to manage the site. The job is now handled by a technology manager hired soon after the store opened.
Though online sales will still account only for a small proportion of their business in 2007, their second year in business, sales overall are projected to increase 60 percent. That won’t be the case in 2008, Lora said, when they will be busy opening a third, and possibly a fourth store. And by then they may have expanded into a very different market. MOTIF has already outfitted a Texas spa, and Lora can picture MOTIF furniture in many more commercial properties—spas, salons, and other image-conscious businesses. What is now one store will eventually be, he is confident, a brand known coast to coast by a great diversity of customers and clients.
“If I ever have a biography, if I ever become somebody, it would have to be about this: my dreams are so out of scale with reality,” said Lora, laughing. “But I believe this very wholeheartedly. You do have to dream big. Everybody told me to start small, and I don’t believe that at all. I think you need to start as big as you possibly can.” HFB
February 28,
2007 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Mattresses on March 2007
Simmons Bedding, Atlanta, announced Wednesday that George Bureau has been named to the newly created position of general manager of Simmons Kids, which manufactures mattresses and sleep accessories for babies, children and teens at factories in Neenah, Wisc.; York, Pa.; and Los Angeles.
Bureau has more than 20 years sales, marketing and product development experience. Prior to joining Simmons, he was vice president and general manager of the consumer products and services division of West Business Services, a $1.2 billion marketing company. At West, he helped develop retail marketing initiatives for several large consumer products companies, including companies serving the youth and baby markets.
“George’s rich experience in sales and marketing will be invaluable to Simmons Kids,” said Simmons President Gary Matthews. “We look forward to great success under his leadership and are pleased to have him as part of the Simmons family.”