R.C. Willey buyer sees benefits in marketing furniture with electronics
By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, February 16, 2009
SALT LAKE CITY — SALT LAKE CITY — Brett Hiatt, the home entertainment and mattress buyer for Top 100 retailer R.C. Willey, gets frustrated when he walks into a manufacturer's showroom and sees an entertainment center with a potted plant sitting where the TV would be located.
And he gets really frustrated when there's absolutely nothing in that spot at all.
“If I see that at the Las Vegas market, I tell them to go to one of our stores (the retailer has two in the Las Vegas area), buy a couple of TVs and bring them back to the showroom,” he quipped.
He said the benefits of merchandising entertainment furniture and electronics together are significant, and he believes manufacturers and retailers — even those who don't sell electronics — should do it routinely.
“With us, it creates sort of a domino effect,” said Hiatt, who used to be the chain's electronics buyer. “We're telling them (consumers) they can get it all right here at our store.”
He said one of the retailer's most successful efforts in that arena is a fully furnished and accessorized great room that was set up in both Las Vegas stores.
Done in partnership with Sony, the room settings include a variety of upholstered and wood furniture, as well as an entertainment center featuring, as you might expect, a Sony television.
“It gives the consumer some peace of mind,” Hiatt said. “It shows how it could look in their home.”
He said consoles remain the most popular pieces of entertainment furniture, but he believes retailers and vendors have been too quick to give up on larger wall system and even bedroom armoires — a product many in the industry already have written off.
“It's not because people suddenly stopped liking armoires. It's because the (flat-panel) TV wouldn't fit inside them,” he said.
The same holds true for wall systems, as Hiatt believes consumers will still buy them if they're designed specifically for flat-panel TVs.
When he first became entertainment furniture buyer, he said he immediately dropped numerous SKUs from the wall system lineup because they couldn't accommodate a 42-inch plasma TV, the biggest seller among flat-panel sets.
“If it won't hold a 42-inch plasma, I won't even consider it,” he said.
R.C. Willey's key entertainment furniture vendors include Aspenhome, Emerald, Hooker, Legends, Sunny Designs and Whalen.
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