Holiday display draws traffic
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, December 21, 2008
PINEVILLE, N.C. — The operators of Blacklion home furnishings and gifts center here have been spreading holiday cheer in a big way.
Bob and Nita Emory, who opened their first multi-merchant showroom here in a former Kmart in 1996, recently acquired a 7,000-square foot garden center attached to the 68,000-square-foot store.
This season, the center is a Holiday Wonderland of singing bears, snowy trees, antique automobiles and complimentary cookies, hot cider and hot chocolate.
And every Saturday through Christmas, Santa Claus arrives on a fire truck with a bag of toys benefiting the U.S. Marine Corps' Toys for Tots program. Santa also spends the afternoon listening to children's Christmas wishes.
The store has been mobbed on the weekends, said Larry Smith, executive vice president and chief marketing and sales officer for Barcalounger, who visited the Charlotte, N.C.-area store recently.
“It has become a fantastic holiday destination,” Smith said, adding that the Emorys have come up with a brilliant way to give back to the community and bring business through the door at the same time.
Bob Emory said Blacklion's primary focus has always been “to darken the doorway,” because once the upscale store gets consumers in, they are hooked and will be back.
“During the holidays, we're packed anyway, but one of the things it has done is bring a lot of traffic in during the week,” he said. Emory estimated that the display has helped boost traffic by about 20% from last year's holiday selling season.
That's big, given the economy, said Nita Emory. She said the Holiday Wonderland is drawing people who have never shopped Blacklion before, including some who didn't realize it was a home furnishings and gifts showroom consisting of scores of tenants that range from interior designers with extra inventory to housewives to a handful of manufacturers.
The holiday display includes antique automobiles that Bob Emory has collected over the years, such as a 1922 Ford Model T delivery truck and a 1958 Triumph TR3 red convertible, shown with a big red bow on the hood and filled with holiday packages and Mickey Mouse at the wheel.
The store has borrowed four animatronic bears that sing Christmas carols. Near the Model T, a snow-blowing machine showers a light, non-staining soap solution every once in awhile, but especially when the kids ask the Emorys to “let it snow.”
The store store's electrician spent about two weeks setting up a 4-foot-by-30-foot Christmas village with about 100 miniature houses, skaters and other pieces from his private Department 56 collection.
Tables are set up for children to write letters to Santa, which they hand to him as they climb up on his lap for a chat. Blacklion takes digital photos of the children that consumers can pick up for free the following day — drawing them back to the store for yet another visit.
“It's all about creating memories for families,” said Bob Emory, who along with Nita operates three Blacklion stores in greater Charlotte and one in Nashville, Tenn.
He recalled going to downtown Charlotte during the holidays when he was a boy, taking in all the department store window displays. But those stores are long gone and there was nothing like them for families to enjoy during the holidays anymore, he said.
Until now, at Blacklion.
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