Furniture Mall of Kansas Hosts Furniture First Next Gen Members

October 5, 2017  by Larry Thomas in Industry, Special Events   

The store tours included topics such as employee compensation, pricing, order management, deliveries, and merchandise assembly.

The visiting retailers represented 24 Furniture First member stores, and it marked the first educational event for the Next Gen unit.

“Independent, family owned businesses are getting rarer and rarer in this economy,” said Amanda Daubert, director of services for Furniture First. “When the next generation joins the family business, we want to help them with the resources they need to keep it running. Networking is a big part of this.”

The meeting wrapped up with a review of the resources that Furniture Mall of Kansas uses for buying and merchandising. This includes several sales analytics reports that the store developed to track the sales of each product in their stores in Olathe and Topeka, Kan., representing roughly 320,000 square feet of retail space.

“It was great to connect with the Next Gen members within Furniture First,” said Kyle Deets, of Deets HomeStore in Norfolk, Neb. “The Winter family (owners of Furniture Mall of Kansas) were gracious hosts, showing us their operation. In a fast-paced digital world, personal relationships still matter and I am excited to be part of the Next Gen.” 

“The response to our Next Gen group has been outstanding,” added Andrew Kauffman, CEO of Furniture First. “We did a survey about a year ago and found out that the majority of our members’ businesses are multi-generational, and are operated by the second, the third or greater generation. This is something our members were really looking for to help their family businesses thrive.”