Cover Story   VOL 8 NO2

Big Tree-Riding The Futon Wave To Success

by Joe Tatulli

OK, I'll admit it; this was my first trip to Los Angeles. Hollywood, the beach, the laid back California lifestyle.

I'd met the guys from Big Tree four years ago at the San Francisco Market. The company has grown considerably since those early days and is now a major domestic futon furniture manufacturer. Specializing in oak and alder futon furniture, Big Tree is making a splash with new futon retailers on the West Coast, as well as contacts all over the country who are looking for middle to higher-end domestic futon product in solid (oak and alder) hardwoods.

History: Four years of growing

Prior to California's economic downturn in 1991, Bob Glade and Bob Pecoraro had made their living peddling antique reproductions and selling an assortment of wood and furniture products to mass merchants like Costco and Sam's Clubs. "We had a ten year run with the oak reproductions here on the West Coast," said Bob Glade during a recent trip to LA, where we visited the Big Tree and Big Sleep factories. "It was only four years ago that Bob (Pecoraro) and I hooked up with Young Lim at Big Tree," he said. "We started with a simple thirty inch bookcase for Sam's," said Pecoraro. Young Lim, Jr., and his father Young Lim, Sr., had started the company several years earlier. Big Tree, up to that point, had been a small case

goods manufacturer operating out of a 10,000 sq. ft. plant. "They had been making hutches, china cupboards, and bookcases for ten years," said Glade. The company was experienced at quickly developing new products at the request of their customers, who would see trends and then call upon Big Tree to make the products they needed. "We had always been able to turn out just what our customers needed on a dime because of the skills of the people we employ," said Glade. As Paul Harvey would say, their entrée into the futon furniture category is "The rest of the story".

"The request for a futon mattress and futon frame came from one of our best customers at the time, Jim Storms, the buyer from PACE," said Glade. (PACE was eventually bought out by Sam's Club.) At that point in time, they looked at each other and asked the age old question, What is a futon? Not a group prone to miss out on an opportunity, Glade, Pecoraro, and Lim went on an educational trip to some local futon stores. "We decided we would give this futon category a try," said Glade. "Jim (Storm) told us that if the futon product worked at retail, he would be buying truckloads."

The futon product was a real test for the Big Tree workshop. They started by making several futon design changes that focused on improvements to some of the designs that were already on the market. "After we sat down on our first futon sofa, we decided that the futon seat angle was all wrong for comfortable seating," said Pecoraro. Because of their inexperience with the futon category, they thought nothing of raising the back end of the seat a full two inches. "Sofa-height" seating is now a Big Tree trademark. "If we had known more about futon category we might not have made this obvious improvement," said Glade. Right after shipping the first truckload of futon sofa samples to PACE, Big Tree stopped production on all other products and focused just on futon furniture. That first shipment included both the futon frame and the futon mattress in one box, a system they still use today for much of their "club" business. Another innovation, putting linen drawers under the futon frame seat, was the next logical add on. "After we raised the seat to sofa height, we realized there was more than enough room for a couple of drawers," said Pecoraro. The futon drawers have become another great value-added feature on most Big Tree futon frames. "Retailers love the opportunity of offering their customers something no one else has," said Glade, and the under-drawers are just that.

A year ago, due to a doubling of their futon orders, the company moved into a new 60,000 sq. ft. plant in Commerce, CA. "When we started, we were making one frame for PACE," said Glade. "We were packing the futon frame and the futon in one box, and shipping out thousands per month," he said. Today, with a production staff of over one hundred in the wood plant, Big Tree can now ship thousands of futon frames per week, in several different arm styles, to their growing list of satisfied customers.