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Cachet - America Begins Here

Billboards announce "America Begins Here" as visitors drive over undulating farm country in central Pennsylvania. Folks take time to meet a traveler passing through. Mealtimes bring hearty food. Houses are sturdy and often built large, with extra rooms for growing families.

Successful non-mass merchant retailing in these parts takes more than a decent location and some price points. Locals know families going back a few generations, and they're inclined to buy quality home furnishings that, like the land all 'round them, will withstand the test of time.

Being known as "good people" is a genuine compliment, so when such a description was applied to Cachet Futon Also Furniture in Pennsylvania's capital, Harrisburg, well, one motors into the heartland.

Located on a high volume road with driver-easy visibility, Cachet is merchandised with an ambience rarely found in futon-or furniture-stores. Tasteful. Alluring. Crisp housekeeping. Vignettes. Casual. Comfortable. Occupying 16,000 retail square feet, the showroom exudes a come-on-and-relax quality that the first-rate retailers know how to provide.

Rick and Cindy Stayton built Cachet from a tiny shop to a market-leader over the past 15 years. Starting with Boston's New Moon Futon From the Source Futons futon shop, observing steady product improvements, watching the industry change and then making a commitment to futon sets (with trepidation, long since passed)...the two say the evolution of their store is the result of keeping up with new futon products and trends in the home furnishings industry.

'Breath of Fresh Air'

Harrisburg witnessed their flair for interior design five years ago when, at a home show held by area builders Showcase Decorative Style won First Place in competition with area interior designers, including one incumbent who'd won the event for eight successive years.

"We're a more contemporary operation, and we were told we brought a breath of fresh air into that competition," Rick Stayton notes. The breath of fresh air attitude is abundant inside Cachet. While the store also sells residential and office furniture, the store's name and reputation is built on futons-on the look and the comfort inherent in futons.

Has Cachet, Still Must Promote

"We don't offer unfinished or metal promotional futon products," Cindy Stayton says, "rather, we show quality solid wood futons in room settings." A $2,500 futon set is a common sale here. Cindy said that often folks stop by and say: 'I'll take it just the way you're showing it', covers, pillows and all."

Cachet advertises on the radio every month, year 'round. Yellow Pages, word of mouth and drive-by.... all grow the business.

The owners believe their location is another key to their success.

And teamwork is vital: "We all do enjoy working with one another," Cindy says. Rick is a softspoken man who says he and Cindy plan any changes, strategies and advertising campaigns together. She calls him "the Big Daddy", but that is probably an allusion to his being a father of four, rather than any sort of big boss man.

Customers become friends of the Stayton family. And it is a family. Rick and Cindy are the proud parents of Matt, 10; Sean, 7; Chad, 5 and Ryan, age 3. That's four boys who are already being groomed to carry on the Stayton furniture tradition. Cindy is a fit, slim and effervescent woman who clearly relishes being Mom, who is also a retailer down deep.

Cindy's folks were local furniture store-owners in town for years, and local people know her and her family and ask non-furniture questions such as: "Weren't you pregnant last time I was in here?" (Odds are, she was!)

Straightforward Tips for Success

"I'm in here every day," Rick says, when asked to share Cachet success tips with Futon Life readers. "I'm accessible every day. We're local. We're honest. Our prices are right there. People know us. They come up to me in the supermarket and just chat, even if I've only met them because of a futon set they may have purchased a year or more ago.

"We're careful about our vendors. We talk over presentations together, weigh the merits of various products. Who, by the way, told you about us?" he asked.

When told he says, "Ed Pyne* is a solid guy. Been calling on me for years. He does know his stuff."

"Chet and Travis Stoler, and Ed Pyne are among a handful of people we respect who have been helpful to us over the years," he says.

"Futons initially were in the infancy stage. There were many companies that burned you and you'd lose money due to product failures. Then companies such as New West went out, so it has been a struggle at times. Today you still have to be very cautious about vendors you've never heard of before. And then too, small new retailers try to come into futons. We may make it look easy, but it is anything but," Cindy observes.

Workmen were putting a new front on the building, and ladders and scaffolding were behind the Cachet signs out front. Cindy and son Matt were getting into the car, en route to a football game nearby. Rick fielded a phone call: a Carlisle woman who wanted to know what time her futon set will be delivered. "Our guys should be there within an hour or so..." Rick was saying.

Time to move along. Back out into the Pennsylvania summer. America begins here -- and it has Cachet. FL

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