Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
Furniture First Surprises Members with Checks and Gift Cards
May 28,
2020 by Laurie Northington in Business Strategy, Industry 
Furniture First, a national furniture and mattress buying group, sent all its members packets via certified mail that contained a dividend to aid with the purchase of facemasks and hand sanitizer, and gift cards that members can use to reward staff or community members for their efforts in these extraordinary times. The staff was able to source gift cards form a gift-with-purchase supplier partner.
“While we were unbelievably disappointed to cancel this year’s symposium, our team was able to reschedule the same venue for 2022 with minimal charges,” said Andrew Kauffman, CEO of Furniture First. “This gave us the ability to issue a one-time dividend that our members can use to offset some of the unplanned expenses they are dealing with right now, like installing sneeze guards and setting up sanitation stations at all of their entrances. We all know how challenging and uncertain things are right now, and we are doing all that we can to help our members through it by helping them with information, giving them tools to share ideas and resources, and our care packages to help ease the burden.”
The adulation from members was quick in response. Jeff Peek, the store manager of one of Furniture First’s newest members, Knox Furniture, wrote “Being a part of a family owned business can be very rewarding and challenging alike. These days we are all living in right now definitely sends increases in both directions, rewarding and challenging. Knox Furniture has just recently partnered up with Furniture First, I have to say when the mail arrived this week and a check and gift cards were inside it was a real Blessing to us. In the short time we have been a member with Furniture First I can already tell this is a partnership that travels both ways.”
“WOW what an unexpected surprise to receive your care package!” wrote Jeff Lenchner of Today’s Home in Pittsburgh. “The entire Todays Home family of employees is so grateful for all of your support, and this care package was over the top. I was telling Todd Lehman this morning how incredibly impressed I have been with FF [Furniture First] since joining, one of the great highlights of my career in business has been this association. Now this says a great deal about your efforts and support. We are heading into the abyss now with our reopening last Friday, one thing I now know is we can always count on you during the good times and bad.”
Paula Goin, from long-time member WG&R, commented “I just wanted to personally thank you for the wonderful package we received in the mail, and all the hard work you have been doing to keep us updated throughout the Covid 19 epidemic. I realize this has consumed much of your time but wanted to make sure you know that we truly appreciate everything you have done.”
To foster good will, Furniture First is encouraging members to share how they are putting the rewards cards to use in a friendly competition. Several stores are awarding the cards via social media nominations and comments. Other stores are using the cards to reward employees that have put in extra effort during the shutdown, as well as rewarding their top-writing retail sales associate for Memorial Day weekend. One store is using the reward cards in conjunction with local restaurant gift cards as gift with purchase for customers whose purchases exceed a threshold amount.