Casual Living

Recently, a friend moved to Chengdu, China with her job. A lot of my industry friends are making several trips a year to China, too. Finally, you can’t turn on television without hearing about China and the Olympics. And, so, with my interest piqued about all things Chinese I decided to read a book about it.

Amazon.com recommended “Lost on the Planet China: the Strange and True Story of One Man’s Attempt to Understand the World’s Most Mystifying nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid” by J. Maarten Troost. They described it thusly,  “The bestselling author of  ‘The Sex Lives of Cannibals’ returns with a sharply observed, hilarious account of his adventures in China – a complex, fascinating country with enough dangers and delicacies to keep him, and readers, endlessly entertained.” They ...Read More

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In my last blog, I talked about ways to compete with etailers. I mentioned you have to find a way to differentiate yourself from your competition. Perhaps you could offer a higher level of service, same day delivery, or a different or more interesting product than your competition. Before I knew it, time and space had run out and I couldn't mention an example. I saw this store on a recent trip to Palm Springs (Which, by the way, is in California not Florida. Who knew!) I tripped on this store accidentally while walking down the main street looking for a convenient bar. Don’t judge, I was on vacation and it can get very hot out there. It wasn't hot, but it can get very hot!

The name of the store is d.i.g.s.

 http://www.digspalmsprings.com/

It is one of several stores located on the perimeter of what can best be described as a pocke...Read More

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I got a phone call this week from a retailer I haven't met but who hoped my experience could help him solve a vexing problem. This store owner had spent a lot of floor time working with a clienthelping them figure out the best  fit for their space, life style, and budget. The client sat in a lot of chairs to make sure they picked the most comfortable ones. The sales consultant spent a lot of time going through the swatches and helping the consumer find the “perfect” fabric. The store wrote down everything for the client who left without placing an order but promised to come back.

Sure enough, the client returned; however, from the title of this blog, I am sure you can all predict what happened next. The customer informed the retailer  they had found the same furniture on the Internet for a lot less money. If the retailer couldn’t meet that bid...Read More

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Even though Mother Goose encouraged me, I didn’t buy a fat pig at market. In fact, I haven’t bought anything yet; but, here are my impressions.

Kudos to the Merchandise Mart and the six furniture manufacturers who are pioneering on the 15th floor. The six showrooms, Ebel, Ancient Mosaics, Veneman, Lane Venture, Jardin De Ville, and Summer Classics, are all self-contained except Ebel whose front entrance appears to be a continuation of the elevator waiting area. However, they are not showrooms in the sense of the showrooms on the 16th and 17th floors. They are all little jewels that up the ante for the entire market. Be sure you don't miss them and the merchandising ideas you can get from them in September.

Speaking of the next market, it looks like we only have one more year of premarket to endure. The newly formed ICFA has opted to discontinue...Read More

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Last week during an interview for a trade journal, I was asked to address how “Staycations” were affecting my business. Great term that I hadn’t heard before. The term assumes that with the price of gas and food shooting up, people should opt to stay home instead of taking vacations. These “Staycations” would give the homeowner incentive to invest in their backyard to turn it into the resort they can't afford to go to: thus, more furniture sales for us. Yippee!

That was last week, now this morning while driving in to work, I heard NPR reports about the following:
1.    The price of milk and food staples are rising so much; school districts are having a tough time balancing their lunchroom budgets. If changing the product mix and preparation methods don't out weigh increased costs, they are going to have to raise the co...Read More

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It has been several months since I made the decision to accept American Express at my store. To refresh your memory, in our 56 years of business, we have never accepted American Express because they take a much larger percentage of the transaction than Visa or Master Card. Right now our average Visa/M-C discount is around 2.05% whereas AmEx was going to be 2.6%. That is amounts to almost 27% more. So, if my monthly discounts with Visa were $1,000 they could be as much as $1,278 with AmEx. No matter how you slice it, a substantial hit.

My AmEx representative presented me with two reasons I should go with AmEx:

1.    In his experience, only about 20% of Visa/M-C sales converted to American Express, and
2.    Once they found out we accepted AmEx, AmEx cardholders would spend more mostly on add-on accessories

...Read More

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As promised, this blog will point the bright light of discovery on retailers to try to figure out what a manufacturer and rep think makes a good retailer. I won’t be discussing what makes a retailer successful in this blog. Lord knows that is a complete blog, maybe two, in itself. No, I just want retailers to see themselves from the manufacturing side of the fence.

It should go without saying, if you aren’t paying your bills on time, you won’t be considered a valuable account. But some mighty fine retailers take a few extra days to pay bills for reasons having nothing to do with their ability to pay. If the invoice says 2/10 net 30, don’t pay in 20 days and still take the 2% discount. Of course, this is getting harder and harder to do with the proliferation of factors. But still, paying late and still taking the on-time discount can get you cut off...Read More

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In my last blog, I told you what I thought made a good rep. In this blog, I would like to touch on what makes a good vendor. Be assured I know by doing this, I am obligated to take the vendor’s perspective and define good retailers. I will do that in my next blog. I am an equal opportunity curmudgeon, after all.

Delivery, design, customer service, and pricing all are important, but my best vendors are those that establish a partnership with me and do everything they can to maintain it. A good vendor partner recognizes the importance of clean distribution channels. They don’t sell to more retailers than a territory can support. They have come to terms with being manufacturers and don’t try to be retailers, too. They understand the importance of their brick and mortar dealers and have created written Internet policies that protect those stores from etaile...Read More

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I recently read an article in the May, 2008 issue of Home Furnishings Business (www.hfbusiness.com) called, "Successful Reps Change to Fit the Times." It got me to thinking what attributes I need in a good rep.

There was a time I felt reps were only there to write orders and make the occasional call to "shoot the breeze." That was fine with me because I was a “professional” buyer who went to all of the major markets. At market I spoke to principals and learned about new products and factory innovations from them. I rarely took the valuable time of a rep to write an early buy because it could take hours to days to work the order up. But my dependence on reps has changed over the years, especially since I have met some exceptional reps and I now know the difference between a good one and one I only need to see once a year.

Whi...Read More

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As you may remember, the last CFR round table by phone gave a road map to specialty retailers detailing how to work with designers. Karen Galindo of Greenhouse Mall in Texas and Greg Martin of Kolo Collection Georgia were the moderators and gave us valuable information. Armed with that info and inspired by the call, I decided to jump head first into the designer market.

First, I checked the ASID web site to find out the name of the local chapter president. New Orleans wasn't listed; so,  I a designer client of ours gave us a contact. As it turns out, New Orleans is part of a regional chapter but still has local meetings. When I contacted the local chairman, you would have thought I was offering to give her bars of gold when I asked if they would be interested in our hosting a meeting. They always have their monthly meetings at a supplier's showroom but had never been...Read More

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In a week, I read lots of trade magazines and every day I read the newspaper, listen to NPR, watch the news at least twice, and have the Internet going constantly in my office. By immersing myself into all of this info, I am bound to hear something odd daily. This week was no different and I thought I would share some of the most memorable things I’ve heard or read with you. They aren’t in any order and don’t necessarily tie into one another, but I found them interesting.

It never ceases to astound me how vulnerable supposedly rock-solid retailers are. Having said that, I was not so surprised to learn that numerous suppliers have stopped shipping to Linens ‘n Things. It has been reported they are getting ready to file for bankruptcy. Linens ‘n Things is into the first three years of a nine-year turn around plan but many analysts think they go...Read More

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I often wonder how far off the mark I am with our sales staff training programs . . . such as they are. I am concerned that new hires don't get the kind of education they need to be effective sales people, and I am  concerned about our continuing education program.

The employment pool in New Orleans is not deep. We don't have the luxury of requiring strong prior sales experience in a new hire. Instead, we only list two requirements in our ads:  applicants must have prior work experience and be computer literate. Of course, we look for people who communicate well, show a sense of style, and impress us with their interview. These minimal requirements mean we are going to have to do a lot of training.

We have a pretty good new hire training system. We use a video sales training system from Portico, the people who make Point of Purchase displays. The...Read More

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