How many Hancock & Moore pieces does your dealer display?

The past Monday I went into the top Washington DC retailer for Hancock & Moore to see what they have and was stunned. Between their top and bottom floors, they had (1) H&M leather sofa and a pair of matching leather chairs for a total of three pieces.

THREE. I expected to see a lot more.

Today I walked around and counted up my H&M floor inventory pieces. I have thirty-three on the floor of my very small store. 33, not 3. And yet that big store in the trendy part of town blows me away in volume while selling at higher prices. My Virginia store is a scant 16 miles south of this one, and my prices are less - yet I never get that customer in Washington DC. Go Figure.

I haven't been to my local H&M retailer in awhile.. The last time, I'd say about a dozen pieces, total..

But, they carry a lot of lines, including Harden and Stickley

My post didn't make it. I was going to modify it anyway.

I returned to the store and counted 8 Hancock and Moore pieces. What was odd, several of the pieces, recliners, were marked half the T&C price. From $3000 down to $1500. The leather wasn't that nice, and I'm guessing it was old stock married couple leather. There were several $5000 recliners and the leather looked great. What impressed me the most about the $ H&M. Recliners was their very smooth mechanism, very little effort required. By contrast, the BY recliners were noticeably stiffer and took more strength than my wife had. The sofas were very impressive, and were even comfortable for our smaller frames. What I can't understand is why the H&M products were scattered throughout the store. If I walk into a store just to see H&M, I don't want to look at 100 pieces just to find the H&M.

I visited a local dealer to see H&M with a huge store, and they had maybe 4-6 pieces. They were scattered around also, and were only identifiable with a special code on the tags. (Maybe that's standard?) It was frustrating to walk all over the large store turning over tags to find the H&Ms.

Duane, Are there rules that prohibit you from targeted advertising across the DC Area? It is somewhat amazing to me that so many of your Customers are from around the country, yet those fortunate enough to reside within a short driving distance may not know of your sizable H&M inventory let alone your overall value proposition. My experience having lived one-mile from the DC Line in the Chevy Chase, Summerset neighborhood told me that there are quite a number of buyers in the DC Area that would specifically value higher-quality items even while requiring a larger investment. It is so much more fun to buy furniture that you can actually see and sit on prior to your purchase. The thought of being able to find exactly what you want, right on the floor makes it so much easier when there are multiple decision makers in the house.

I have always believed that as a dealer, you either get into a line or you get out of it. It does no good to piddle-diddle having three or four samples of a maker's product, that won't represent the brand and the dealer will not become well-versed in it. Jump in and get behind the brand or don't carry it at all. Customers DO want a presence on the brand. I get two or three comments a week from people that come in and say "Is this all the Hancock & Moore you have? I expected more...I'm disappointed" and that's with 33 pieces shown. What customers really want is a full lineup with every model, but with over 1,400 frames in the line at any given time, that's not going to happen without a massive storefront on the order of 80,000 s.f and enough cash to carry that kind of inventory.

I can advertise the whee out of H&M, they'd be more than happy. Problem there is they don't do Co-Op money and I can't afford Washington DC Advertising. A very small ad 2" x 2" in The Washington Post is $ 3,500 for one time, one day and a small radio campaign on a station that the people that buy H&M would listen to (WTOP) is $ 50,0000 a month. Used to to do it many years ago (print only) and the cost of the advertising didn't increase the business to make it worthwhile. Smaller markets would be less costly, for sure.

You folks here on the forum can help me out doing a GOOGLE Review or a YELP Review if you are so inclined. That costs nothing and more and more people are reliant on those than traditional advertising.

Does H&M understand the value of your blog to their company? I contacted Stickley to let them know how frustrated I was at lack of info on their products. Couldn't find info on my cushions or leather. I mentioned your site, and told them they needed something similar. They looked at your site and complimented me on my excellent observation and said they would forward it to marketing. I can forward my e mail and their response if you like. I specifically went to the only H&M seller in my area to buy H&M solely because of your blog. As I mentioned elsewhere, I ended up getting a number of Stickley pieces instead because they had a better Stickley display. Not many H&M inventory. The only H&M dealer for 50 miles.

Yes, Hancock and Moore and all my suppliers are very much aware of this site, and you know - its open to anyone in the business to post here. In fact, when I first began this forum I was hoping for participation from a number of people in the trade, it was never designed with the intent of me being the sole information source! Every once in awhile a furniture business or manufacturer will pop in and announce they are here, make some posts and fade away because its not income-producing as informational sites never are. While the Sales and Marketing Dept of any organization can tell you its a great idea, the truth of the matter is a company like Stickley (or any other for that matter) will be unlikely to do it. They don't have to re-invent the wheel and spend the dollars to lay it out they can simply use this one. But that's not going to happen because it takes a lot of time to be active on a forum such as this, and who at Stickley would do it? There are two barriers to that: 1) They have to have someone with a knowledge base to contribute, Your typical mid-level customer service person won't have the skill set and most of the people that do are running the place. 2) They will want to do it during work hours and who wants to allocate a budget for that when they can be working on income-producing endeavors?

IF you look around the internet, you will see a number of failed furniture forum type sites. Some were started by manufacturers, others by stores and most fail shortly after they have begun. Why? It takes too much time, plain and simple. The only furniture forum sites that are successful are ons like Garden Web, which are run by the consumers themselves as the knowledge base. There are secondary problem with having a site like this are quite a few people that come here decide they don't want to take the time to type things out and would rather call my store. If I'm in the middle of unloading a truck or doing a check run on my computer the very last thing I want to do is to interrupt what I am doing to answer a phone call from someone who says "Tell me all there is to know about leather furniture", or "Is $ 500 too much to pay for an 40 year old Kittinger desk?" That's become a real problem as this forum gets more Google hits. Imagine getting 20 phone calls a day like that and pretty soon you begin to wonder what kind of monster you created. A number of manufacturers/dealers will cite that as a reason they don't have this kind of informational exchange as well. Also, they're a little scared of John Q Public and the blowups that can happen on social media, or sites like this. They don't want to get into it with retail consumers in an on-line disagreement. Me? I don't care...lol....I'm too old and crusty.

There is s financial cost of running this site, it costs several thousand dollars per year for the hosting and 95 % of the people that use it never make a purchase from The Keeping Room. I never ask for donations but if folks will click the ads at the top and visit those ad sites it does bring in a small revenue stream. Last but certainly not least, this site does not maintain itself. We would not have this forum if it were not for the dedication and volunteer help of Aaron L., who is way smarter than me on how to keep this up and running. He has spent hours and hours of free time to keep it smooth and running, and we we got hit with a Russian Cyber Attack and they took it over a few years ago for a period of time - it was touch and go if he could even get it fully recovered. So there are security issues as well.