Holding Our Own While the Big Guys Go Under

It’s been a tough couple of years for furniture stores. Homelife is boarding up its storefronts. Montgomery Ward has settled with its creditors. Heilig-Meyers stores have closed.

Futon specialty stores, however, seem to relish this tough economic environment. Brimming with optimism and elated with record sales, they have been expanding their storefronts, extending their lines of credit and increasing their advertising.

Slow economic times have signaled the death knell for a number of large furniture retailers across the country. Current sales statistics show that manufacturers are also in poor health. Bassett Furniture’s sales are off 16%. Rowe’s are down almost 10%.

Vital signs of futon stores, however, are clear and strong. A recent Futon Life survey of stores shows that four-fifths of retailers polled are experiencing sales at the same or higher levels than last year. Three-fourths of them report that customers are buying at the same or higher price points. Retailers are signaling a vigorous optimism about the future.

A Picture of Health

All across the nation, futon furniture retailers are experiencing hearty sales. A specialty store in Tennessee reports a thirty percent jump in volume. A Wisconsin futon store reports record-breaking back to school sales. A local chain of bedding stores in North Carolina reports that their average futon furniture sale has jumped from $500 to $1000.

Rather than being stumped by today’s economy, futon furniture retailers are using the current economic conditions to their advantage. They are using record low interest rates as an opportunity to expand and remodel their stores. Existing stores are committing more square footage, sales training, and advertising to their futon furniture lines. Still others are adding more frame, mattress and cover choices to their offerings.

Fishing in a Different Pond

Futon furniture retailers seem to agree that the closing of major furniture chains has had little or no impact on their sales figures. They believe that they are not experiencing ripple effects of these closings because they are fishing for sales in a different pond.

Futon furniture sales remain unaffected because of the differences between the two types of stores. Customers that shop at stores like Montgomery Ward are not the ones that typically shop at futon stores. In addition, the two types of stores carry a different product. The big boys carried very limited selections of futons, while specialty stores show customers a full line of futon furniture.

Stocking the pond

Why, then, are futon furniture sales growing for so many retailers? Some identify the overall growth of the category as the reason. Like stocking their pond with many new fish, retailers see new types of people willing to shop for and buy futon furniture for their homes.

Among these are Joe Poljak. His store, World Futon, used to see mostly the college crowd come through its doors. In the past five years, however, he has seen a major shift in store traffic. Now he sells mainly to folks who are between 45 and 65 years old. He is delighted that people are much better educated about futon furniture than ever before.

He is not alone in finding that customers are more informed before they even enter a futon furniture store. Information gathered over the Internet seems to be a key factor in the progress category. People in all age and economic brackets are more knowledgeable about the quality of futon furniture and more accepting of them as furniture.

Simple Success

It’s simple. Futon furniture is a great value at every price point. It seems more people are realizing what we have known all along. Retailers are confident that futon specialty stores will be able to weather financial storms. Perhaps they can even thrive.

Specialty stores can do well in tough markets because when it comes to good times or bad, high end or low, fashionable or utilitarian, futon furniture shoppers can always find what they are looking for. Because Scott Miller of Futons Futons Futons carries a full product line, he can confidently claim, “I will always have the right product.”

The size of specialty stores is an important advantage, too. Because they are small, they can be flexible about the amount and type of inventory they maintain. They can personalize service to their customers in a way that larger chain stores cannot.

Let the big boys close up shop. Small specialty stores are experiencing growth despite their closings, not because of them. With a growing customer base and the advantages of their size, they can weather the economic uncertainties ahead.

FL