Area furniture store goes against the grain

By GRACE GAGLIANO - ggagliano@bradenton.com

Published: Sunday, Jun. 20, 2010

Editor's Note: This is one in a continuing series of stories on local small businesses and how they become creative to grow and survive.

MANATEE — There’s lots of commotion outside Mark Richmond’s office window. Shipments are pulling up to the loading docks. Forklifts are stocking and organizing inventory. And furniture is being assembled and packaged for customer delivery. Among it all, Richmond keeps his eyes on his computer monitor.

The owner of The Furniture Warehouse is searching for more deals on inventory. Richmond goes through his e-mail, as he does every day, to scour through closeout sales manufacturers are sending him.

Richmond sees sofa and loveseat packages for $599, armoires at $299 and $199 accent tables — the prices are about a 50 percent to 70 percent discount. But Richmond will likely respond to the manufacturers targeting a lower price.

“This goes on all day long,” Richmond says. “This is how I do business now. I just sit behind my computer and all day long I search the deals.”

Richmond says this strategy — buying truckloads of closeout specials — is why The Furniture Warehouse’s revenue is up about 25 percent so far this year.

It’s also why the retailer, 0with stores in Bradenton, Sarasota, Venice and Port Charlotte, has maintained estimated annual revenues between $15 million and $20 million throughout the recession.

And it’s why The Furniture Warehouse will be opening a fifth store — a showroom in Ellenton — later this year.

“People ask me ‘Why are you opening a new store now?’ ” Richmond says. “Because the adversity of the marketplace has created a tremendous opportunity. We have a niche that’s very strong and going to be very strong for Ellenton.”

The home furnishing industry has taken a kick to the gut as a result of the housing downturn.

Sageworks Inc., which collects sales figures on private companies, reported that furniture stores had the worst year among retailers in 2009 with sales dropping 11 percent.

Factory shipments were down significantly in 2009, too.

Domestic shipments of wooden residential furniture decreased 22 percent in 2009, and imported shipments of wooden residential furniture drooped 22.3 percent.

Furniture business hit hard

“Residential furniture is a housing, interest rate, consumer confidence and credit reliant industry,” said Jerry Epperson Jr., a furniture industry analyst based in Richmond, Va. “And if you really look at the last 18 months, consumer confidence hit an all-time new low, consumer credit for a long time late in 2008 to 2009 just wasn’t there, the housing industry was crippled and then there’s unemployment. All those things hit our business hard.”

To cope with these factors, furniture retailers are having to try new approaches, said Epperson, who is a corporate adviser to furniture retailers and publishes “The Furnishings Digest.”