O'Sullivan set to target home furnishings stores
By Tom Edmonds -- Furniture Today, April 14, 2002
LAMAR, Mo. — O'Sullivan Furniture is targeting home furnishings retailers as an expansion opportunity for its flat-pack furniture.
The eighth-largest U.S. furniture maker, and second-largest manufacturer of ready-to-assemble furniture, O'Sullivan is creating a new division to service this channel of distribution. The division, which won't include a new network of sales representatives, should be operational by October.
Until now, O'Sullivan has focused primarily on discounters, mass merchants, superstores for electronics and office products, and other national chains for retail distribution. With the new division, the company wants to see if it can build sales momentum with furniture retailers.
"We have developed enough upscale products that can service this channel," said Mike Franks, director of strategic planning. "We are creating a dedicated system within our company to serve this channel. This is not a part-time job we're giving to somebody and saying, 'Why don't you go talk to some furniture retailers?' "
O'Sullivan veteran Mike Hull will direct the initiative as sales manager for the home furnishings division. His focus will include creating more and better point-of-purchase materials as well as a catalog specifically for furniture stores, RTA specialty stores and department stores.
"The reason we're defining it that way is we believe the products we develop for one of those channels will probably sell in all of them," Hull said.
He added that merchandising for home furnishings stores "will not be SKU driven. It will be collection driven."
O'Sullivan believes its quick-delivery capability, even on small orders, will appeal to furniture retailers.
"These customers require service in a different way than some of the mass merchants we normally work with," Hull said. "We are pulling people out of their normal function to create the separation that we think we need to focus on this channel."
Among the RTA majors, only Sauder Woodworking has maintained consistent sales and support service for home furnishings stores over the years. Although a number of noteworthy furniture stores have found success with RTA, the vast majority of flat-pack furniture is sold through national chains and big-box retailers who mix furniture in with other product categories.
These mass merchants, discounters and category killers prefer to work with furniture that comes in relatively easy-to-handle boxes, and they demand substantial support for marketing and post-purchase service.
O'Sullivan executives declined to give a sales goal for the new home furnishings division, saying that short-term results are not what the company is seeking.
"If it takes a year or two to establish the trust in this particular channel, that's fine," Franks said.
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