Pushing The Envelope vs. Sucking Wind

If you have been reading this column for any length of time you know how I feel about some of the junk that attempts to pass for real furniture. We have all seen this phenomenon in our category, no doubt, but it has been going on for years throughout the home furnishings industry, as well as the home electronics industry, publishing industry, and many other consumer product categories.

Due to circumstances beyond my control ( like working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week) I have not been able to spend any real time carefully analyzing and personally visiting some of the premier "brand name" furniture retailers like Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware and the like. But as fate would have it they came to me.

As you may or may not know our home base is Providence, Rhode Island. Yeah, I hang out with Dr. Sydney Hansen's brother Seth, and the Farley Brothers, of Federal Hill and Outside Providence fame, actually eat in some of the same Italian restaurants I do.

Well one month ago Nordstrom, one of the nation's top clothiers, and a hoard of super fancy furniture dealers came to town in a shopping center called Providence Place. It is a beautiful mall which will be supported by my tax dollars for years to come. I am sure you will see it eventually if you watch the TV show Providence Friday nights on NBC.

I decided to visit the place on its inaugural weekend and spent a couple of hours shopping Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware.

The Pottery Barn was just chock full of all kinds of really cool stuff but to my shock and amazement many of the shoppers looked remarkably like Martha Stewart. No kidding! Restoration Hardware was definitely a step in the right direction, but everything wanted to look old and retro but it was all new. I will admit some of the tools were pretty neat.

Where am I going with all this you ask? I am either going to push the envelope or suck wind. These two companies are pure marketers. They sell ordinary stuff with high drama. How they get away with selling heavy, French Country tables, made of "cherry like" Brazilian hardwood for upwards of $2,000.00 (chairs extra) is the art of marketing at its:

( ) best ( ) worst.

Futon furniture, as a concept, is one of the best ideas to come along in years. True comfort, true dual purpose, true value, true flexibility... this should be a marketing tour de force. What has happened is that the best marketers in this category have been drowned out by the din of mass merchants, cheesy discounters, and gross misinformation. Futon furniture, done right, pushes the envelope of quality and value to new heights. The retail dealers we've covered, as well as many others, are proving every day that the futon concept works for them and their customers. As far as the rest go, they can suck wind.

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