Chromcraft restructures
Source drops Sumter, CR-Home tag
By Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, February 2, 2009
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Chromcraft Revington has made changes to its product line and brand structure that its leaders believe will help return the company to its roots in casual dining and occasional furniture.
The manufacturer and importer said it will eliminate two solid-wood bedroom programs and also will drop the CR-Home moniker it had adopted in 2006, returning to the more familiar Chromcraft Revington name.
Officials said that the company has eliminated the Sumter brand of bedroom and formal dining and is dropping its Cochrane bedroom program, a move that will temporarily reduce its presence in those categories.
For now, the Cochrane brand is still on the market in dining. But that product — including the custom Design & Dine, Design & Dine Café and Thresher programs — ultimately will be shifted to the Chromcraft brand, which has specialized in casual dining footprints such as dinettes with swivel chairs.
Along with Chromcraft, the company will focus on its Peters-Revington brand of occasional and home entertainment furniture as well as its upcoming Southern Living licensed line of bedroom, dining room, occasional, home entertainment and upholstery.
Southern Living, which will launch at the April High Point Market, will be a new standalone brand for the company.
Chromcraft Revington recently announced the changes to its sales reps and has been informing its dealers.
The changes are the latest in a series of steps the company has taken in the past six months to sharpen its focus and improve its balance sheet.
Financially, the publicly held company has struggled as the retail environment has weakened. During the first nine months of 2008, it saw a nearly 20% drop in sales from the same period a year earlier and posted a loss of $18.5 million or $4.04 per share.
The latest moves mark a turnaround from the company's previous strategy of shifting to a single marketing company overseeing several brands.
That previous direction included establishing joint showrooms for all the brands under the CR-Home banner at the Las Vegas and High Point markets. The Las Vegas showroom will continue under that banner at next week's Las Vegas Market, but will be changed to Chromcraft Revington by the High Point Market in April, said Mike Hanna, senior vice president of sales.
None of the newly eliminated categories will be shown in Las Vegas, Hanna said.
Another of the company's brands, the Silver line of occasional tables, was merged into Peters-Revington about two and a half years ago and has since been phased out with the exception of four or five groups, said Rob Halsten, company vice president of product development for bedroom, occasional and home entertainment.
With the closure of a factory in Lincolnton, N.C., last fall, the company also ceased making Cochrane upholstery. That facility has since been sold, officials said.
“We want to get back to our basic core Chromcraft casual dining — that is what we are really known for,” Halsten said, adding that the company also is readying a big push for the new Southern Living line in April.
“We are really excited about it,” he said of Southern Living. “With business being soft, it will give the dealer an opportunity to have a reason to buy. It's not just another bedroom set — it is a whole collection they can hang their hat on.… Southern Living will get us into a focused bedroom program that will have coordinated occasional and dining without interfering with our core business, which is Chromcraft and Peters-Revington.”
For years, the Sumter and Cochrane brands were domestically produced and were popular among dealers for their quality, solid wood story. But the lines grew to face increased competition from lower-cost imports.
The Sumter production facility in Sumter, S.C., closed in 2006 and the brand shifted to an import model. Cochrane also began the shift to imports over the last two years, Halsten said.
Halsten estimated that imported five-piece Sumter bedrooms retailed around $5,000, while similar imported Cochrane sets retailed around $4,000. A typical Sumter dining table and six chairs and china cabinet retailed around $6,000, he said, while a five-piece Cochrane bedroom retailed for about $4,000.
In retrospect, company officials said while the sets had a solid wood story, even the imports were still too expensive compared to veneered bedrooms and dining rooms on the market.
The Cochrane facility in Lincolnton once produced Cochrane and some Sumter product, Hanna said. Now, the Cochrane custom dining products will be made elsewhere in the United States on a contract basis.
The company's factory in Senatobia, Miss., continues to produce goods for Chromcraft, Hanna said.
Case goods, he said, will be stocked and shipped from the company's Delphi, Ind., warehouse and distribution center.
“Our next phase is to move our dining products to our Chromcraft facility and move all our case goods out of Delphi,” Hanna said. “Our main focus has been to streamline our product line so we can service our customers better. There is no question that our company lost focus in being reliable for our dealers. We have to earn back their trust, but we have done it in the past and will do it again.… We have to bring the dealer back into the equation.”
In retrospect, Hanna believes, the CR-Home name was confusing to some dealers as well as some of the sales force.
“They went from one or two lines to five lines,” he said. “It was just difficult.”
Today, Hanna is optimistic that the new focus — including the Southern Living launch — will give the company a competitive advantage in today's challenging marketplace.
“We will get back to our roots and stress Chromcraft Revington and build this thing back up.”
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