Badcock dealers rally at the beach
Marks says chain running well, but can go a lot faster
By Tom Edmonds -- Furniture Today, September 14, 2003
Myrtle Beach, S.C. — Badcock's extended family of more than 1,000 dealers, store managers, corporate executives and vendors gathered here for the credit-oriented chain's annual fall meeting, a combination business review, merchandise preview and pep rally.
The fourth of these high-production road shows since Don Marks joined the Mulberry, Fla.-based company as president in 1998, this year's party was designed around a racing theme, with plenty of appropriately tuned phrases to reinforce the ideas of teamwork and winning.
Preparing to celebrate its 100th anniversary, the Badcock organization is feeling pretty good about itself. As Marks said, "We're driving a car that's set up exactly for the track we're running on."
The 340-store chain hasn't achieved the unit growth goals set four years ago, and it appears that Badcock will fall short of its previously stated $500 million sales goal for 2004. Nonetheless, the company said it and its dealers have been outperforming the industry since 2000, with sales per store growing from $1.2 million in 2000 to $1.5 million in 2002. Margins have increased by 3 percentage points.
Badcock's merchandise sales came to $376.9 million last year, and total revenues were $444 million, gains of 3% over 2001, Marks said.
"We haven't grown as fast as we hoped, but that's OK," he added. "We're doing a lot of other things right."
He continued to urge the dealers, who operate primarily in small towns and cities in the Southeast, to convert their stores to the Badcock Home Furniture & more concept introduced in 2000.
About 130 stores are now flying that banner, and the results have been consistently positive, with Badcock & more stores registering average sales gains of 7% in 2002, more than double the entire chain's sales increase.
"Badcock & more is clearly winning the hearts of the crowd," Marks said. At the same time, he said, "The path from here to victory has some clutter in the road, and we've got to work our way around it." Specifically, he cited "uneven store execution," inefficient or underdeveloped local marketing and stores that are not open when customers want to shop.
"We've still got dealers trying to squeeze by on half a tank," he said.
Marks promised that "the restrictor plates will come off this race car" and that Badcock will head toward a new set of goals, including $1 billion in annual sales, at least $2 million in sales for each store, and annual income for each dealer of at least $100,000.
The organization will push for greater velocity without losing control, he said.
"We've had the benefit of learning from competitors who pushed too hard and ended spinning off the track."
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