Trips to the local furniture stores today
I went into two major furniture stores today with my wife, because I'm researching a line I think I want to carry and they both have it. One in Maryland, one in Virginia. These are major players, not small timers. And no, I don't identify myself - I just act like a regular customer looking around.
The first store in Maryland stunned me. I expected this one to be beautifully decorated, put together, and organized. It wasn't. It was a warehouse dump. Furniture just strewn around with no organization or even attempt to make it look nice. Salespeople were.....well....idiots. Now I see the frustration many of you experience at stores when you shop. They say two things: 1) "This is really nice furniture, what color do you like?" 2) "We have it on sale right now".
Oy.
The Maryland store is also a Hancock and Moore dealer, the only one in that region and its in a high dollar zip code. I ask "Where's your Hancock and Moore? All I see is Hooker leather furniture". The answer was "Oh, we don't have any Hancock and Moore floor models, their rep needs to get in here and get us some inventory". Huh? Reps don't do that - you order your own inventory. As we got back in the car I said to my wife "This is the competition across town? Seriously? Not one floor model and they still sell it?"
Then we went to the big warehouse store in Virginia. I've been in there before and its so unappealing. Just furniture put on a concrete floor, much of it damaged when it didn't have to be damaged! And its dirty, really dirty. The exposed employee break area was filthy. Gross. Now they did have Hancock and Moore floor models, but all just shoved together, no concept of display or arranging Quite frankly, unappealing. And yet this store moves product - I guess a lot of people just don't care. My wife saw me intently listening to one of their salespeople talk to a couple about leathers and it was all wrong She saw I was ready to interject and she said quietly to me "No - you stay out of that and just move along....this is not your store and they don't need your help."
If I were a little younger, I think based on what I saw today from these two "Big Players" I'd go five times as large on my store and have a highly trained staff and could just dominate this region. They are that bad.
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
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