Memorial Day saves May
Rain or shine, most stores report strong traffic, orders
By Larry Thomas -- Furniture Today, June 21, 2004
High Point — High Point— Memorial Day weekend caused many furniture retailers to celebrate as it brought an upbeat ending to an otherwise mediocre month.
Several retailers said the key holiday weekend saw strong traffic and order-writing, a trend that sustained itself even in cities where the weather was sunny — a factor that sometimes is the death knell for furniture sales.
"Usually, it's better to have a rainy or overcast holiday weekend, but this year, the nice weather did not seem to affect traffic flow," said Ann Navarra, vice president and co-owner of Jerome's Furniture in San Diego. "Our weather was gorgeous."
Navarra said traffic was up about 5% from last year's Memorial Day weekend, aided by an array of TV, newspaper and direct-mail advertising by Jerome's.
"It was a pretty strong weekend across the board," said Kenny Larson, vice president of marketing at Minneapolis-based Slumberland Furniture.
The weekend brought a huge sigh of relief to Tom Daley, executive vice president and general manager of Breuner's in Scottsdale, Ariz., who had watched his May business slow considerably.
"May had been a disappointing month, but the holiday weekend not only exceeded expectations, it made the month for us," said Daley, who described business as "much better" than a year ago.
"We had good traffic all month, but hadn't had a lot of buyers until the holiday weekend," he said. "Perhaps they were waiting for Memorial Day sales."
Three time zones away, Steve Stein, CEO of Grand Furniture in Virginia Beach, Va., also reported a stagnant May. But for Grand, the sluggishness persisted through the holiday weekend.
"I had some stores that did great, and others, the traffic just wasn't there," he said.
He believes high gasoline prices were partly to blame, and it certainly didn't help that several of his stores are near military bases that have seen thousands of personnel shipped out to Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We've been through cycles like this, so we're hoping it's not long-term. But my gut feeling is ... until gas is adjusted, we're going to be looking at a slowdown for a while," Stein said.
No slowdown was evident at the 64-unit Storehouse chain, based in Atlanta. President Caroline Hipple said the four-day holiday was "way past our expectations."
"The weather, generally speaking, helped us," she said. "It was a little overcast in most of our markets so that also encouraged people to go indoors."
Almost all Storehouse markets, which stretch from Texas through the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states, performed about equally on a comparable-store basis. "I didn't see that some markets were booming while others weren't," Hipple said.
Another Southeastern powerhouse, Atlanta-based Havertys, said its comparable-store sales declined 8.1% for May and said total orders for the holiday weekend were flat with Memorial Day 2003.
"Customer orders for the holiday weekend in 2003 were approximately 25% ahead of the same period in 2002, so this year's comparison was challenging," said Clarence Smith, president and CEO.
As is usually the case, retailers said advertising and special promotions were the keys to getting consumers to walk into stores and open their wallets.
Salt Lake City-based R.C. Willey Home Furnishings, for example, offered special pricing on room packages, with a cooler as a free gift to encourage customers to shop.
"It was a very good weekend," said Jeff Child, president of the 12-store retailer. "Traffic was up from last year, and sales were up 20% from a typical weekend."
Single-store Harkness Furniture in Tacoma, Wash., had similar results, luring customers with a 12-month "no-no-no" plan and a 5% discount for cash.
"It was the best May in the history of the store," said President David Harkness. "Sales for April and the beginning of May were soft ... but we made up all lost ground on Memorial Day weekend."
Warren Wollheim, president of Dinettes Unlimited in Sarasota, Fla., tried an even more radical promotion — he decided to keep his eight-store chain open on Memorial Day, which he didn't do in 2003.
"We were very busy Monday, to my surprise," Wollheim said. "But we weren't busy Saturday and Sunday. The only thing I can think of is that there were three nice days in a row and people did the beach thing on the first and second day and did a little shopping on Monday."
But overall, Wollheim said business has been "very, very strong."
"The month of April was good and the month of May was good. We're certainly hopeful that it's going to continue," he said.
| Acknowledgements | ||
| Senior Editor Gary Evans and Staff Writers Jeff Linville and Melissa Caudill contributed to this story. | ||
