Couple takes shot at camouflage furniture, can't hide from boomers
By Gary Evans -- Furniture Today, April 14, 2002
HIGH POINT — Even though it's a camouflage furniture store, a new business here in the furniture capital of the world will be quite easy to find.
The 15,000-square-foot CamoFurniture store on South Main Street will retail a line of sofas, chairs, sleepers, sectionals and recliners conceived and marketed by Jane and Jim Harrington.
The store here will replace a smaller one in nearby Thomasville and, along with camouflaged upholstered pieces, will sell accent furniture themed toward the rustic, outdoorsy look.
The couple, furniture retailers for 20 years, got into the business almost a year ago because Jim Harrington, an avid sportsman, would go to hunting and fishing shows and people would ask what business he was in. When he replied that he owned three furniture stores — two in New Jersey, one in Thomasville — the immediate question was, "Where can I find camouflage furniture?"
"I kept hearing that and hearing that," Harrington says. So the couple sold their $4.5 million businesses, returned to their native state of North Carolina and established CamoFurniture.
The Harringtons subcontract to four local manufacturers in Thomasville and Lexington. Harrington says he talked to several manufacturers about making the furniture himself, "and they told me that would be suicidal." CamoFurniture is a licensee of Mossy Oak, which supplies the company with fabric.
The Harringtons started their business by taking the product to the SHOT Show in New Orleans, an exhibition attended by about 17,000 buyers of sportsmen's merchandise.
"We took furniture to do the offices, seating areas and lobbies, and they fell in love with us," Harrington says. "We found out what they were looking for."
Since then, the product has been quickly disappearing off the company's floor. The Harringtons set up a Web site, www. camofurniture.com, which is linked to by other sites, and sells through sportsmen's magazines and catalogs as well as the retail outlet. The company also sells through a few stores in Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and its product has been featured in Mossy Oak commercials on cable sportsmen's shows.
So far, CamoFurniture hasn't shown at the High Point furniture market. "We'll probably show one time, anyway, to get the feedback and the feel of it," Harrington says.
The business has given the owners several surprises.
"When I first looked at this, I thought it would be for the good ol' boys because our recliners sell for $399 delivered from the shop to the house. But it's really more doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs" who are buying, he said.
Travelers have stopped at the Thomasville store on the way to other destinations, and country music singers Troy and Montgomery Gentry sent their tour bus by to pick up a recliner. Sofas are $799; upholstered chairs are $499.
The prime market, in fact, has been affluent baby boomers, who are buying for second homes, log cabins, game rooms and hunting and fishing lodges from Maine to California, according to Harrington. The fabrics, with names like Forest Floor, Shadow Branch, Shadow Leaf and Shadow Grass, are not the Army-style green and tan camouflage but more subtle patterns designed to blend in with other household surroundings.
Other markets have opened, according to Harrington. "A lot of guys can't bring camo into the house," he says. "But they do have offices." So CamoFurniture introduced office chairs and seating. Also planned is a line of camouflage slipcovers for existing furniture used in second homes, lodges and the like.
Harrington says the break from retail to manufacturing was a welcome passage. "It's fun again," he says, and gives the family, which includes daughter Allison, 11, and son Brayton, 6, more time together.
Previously, he says he spent so much time at work that when he'd come home, "the dog would bite me because he didn't know who I was."
The Harringtons will be back at the SHOT show next month, this time in Las Vegas, but it will be different from last year.
"We've got a track record," says Harrington. "Last year we were standing there with a smile on our face saying, 'Please.' Now they're looking for us."
| Boots and all, CamoFurniture founder Jim Harrington is right at home on his store's products. |
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