Hooker expands Seven Seas boutique line
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, April 22, 2004
AT THE MARKET — Hooker Furniture has fine-tuned and expanded its Seven Seas Treasures boutique program for market with a series of new displays that give dealers more size options and other ideas for getting started.
The manufacturer has upped its Treasures presentation from two examples of the imported home accent boutiques to seven new prototype displays.
They range from 260 square feet to 1,400 square feet and each shows the investment a dealer can expect to make to fill the rooms as shown (ranging from $6,738, to $19,391).
Since Hooker introduced the program a year ago, the number of dealers with in-store Seven Seas Treasures boutiques has grown to 300, said Mike Spece, senior vice president and creator of the concept for Hooker. Coming out of this market, Hooker is aiming to boost that to 500 boutiques.
"I think every store I've ever visited has one underperforming room," said Spece, who had 20 years of retail experience at Minneapolis-based Gabberts and other stores before joining Hooker.
"All we're asking customers to do is identify that room and the Hooker sales rep can do the rest."
The 1,500-SKU Treasures line starts with end tables retailing for $199 and goes up to a 92-inch-tall wine cabinet introduced this market for $2,499.
Spece said the key to the program continues to be the companion catalog, which has grown to 312 pages this year (from 216 pages) and is arranged the way most female consumers would shop for the pieces — by category, such as baker's racks, barstools and chests. A single item with multiple uses would appear in the catalog in several places, which, Spece said, makes the book quite user-friendly.
Hooker backs its Seven Seas Treasures program with $40 million in inventory. Every Thursday night, it e-mails an up-to-date stock list with suggested pricing to all participating retailers so that salespeople can be sure the pieces are available and can be delivered to the store — usually within a week, Spece said.
Hooker hopes the expanded display in the High Point showroom will appeal to dealers like Lancaster, Ohio-based Colonial Heights Furniture, which committed to the program in April 2003. The store had been selling the Seven Seas product for several years, but took Hooker's lead and brought it together last summer in a 450-square-foot boutique.
Since then, the space has become one of the store's most productive areas with sales per square foot rivaling the bedding area, said David Lively, Colonial Heights' president and CEO. Margins for the imported accent categories have increased three percentage points, and sales volume is up 16%.
"It's fun. Designers love it. Salespeople love it," he said. "It creates excitement for customers."
Colonial Heights shows 30 to 50 SKUs and only the most popular pieces — a sink cabinet, entertainment cabinet and a kitchen cupboard — are nailed down and backed up. The rest of the line changes out regularly, keeping the area fresh.
The two-store Knoxville Wholesale Furniture in Knoxville, Tenn., has had similar success since it devoted about 2,000 square feet to a Treasures boutique around the central staircase at its flagship store.
But owner Tim Harris disagreed with Spece on the placing the boutique in an underperforming area, saying the Treasures items are an emotional, impulse buy. He said his store has done better since it moved its Seven Seas Treasures to a higher-traffic area.
"They've got a high-end look at a medium price points, and their quality level is above the promotional guys," Harris said. "We find when the customer is shopping for a special piece to personalize the home (she) wants better quality."
Harris has been so pleased with the concept that he is expanding it out of the boutiques and into other vignettes around the stores.
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