World’s Largest Furniture Store – Now What?
The Third Growth Option with Benno Duenkelsbuehler and Guests
English - February 11, 2021 13:00 - 37 minutes - 25.6 MBBusiness business revenue expansion growth Homepage Download Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Furnitureland South is a 52-year-young company, one location the size of a dozen or so Home Depot stores (1,300,000 square feet!) that became the world’s largest of its kind with a few powerful guideposts – namely selection, quality, price and service. And relationships. Jeff Harris is one of the owners and the CEO, talking about what fueled their growth and how he envisions to keep growing.
5:32 – “in 1990 we were a $12M operation and over the next decade we grew to nearly $180M in volume”
10:33 – “we do about 30% of our business with consumers in our state of North Carolina… and the rest is consumers all over the country (63% of revenue) and 7% international customers… we have over 150 design consultants…”
20:17 – “we use our website to give people information, inspiration… (before they come in) and then we try to connect with them…the online chat has become the new shiny toy.”
22:09 – “some companies inside the home furnishings industry… rebel companies like Pottery Barn or RH or ABC Carpet… do a great job with aspirational merchandising but as an industry we’re not that crisp… how can we create confidence in the consumer in their taste?”
29:02 – talking about longer term future “we’re looking at opening smaller showroom presence in some major markets”
Always growing.
Benno Duenkelsbuehler
CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN