American Home enhances displays in new store
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, April 13, 2003
Albuquerque, N.M. — American Home will open a 100,000-square-foot store here using new display touches and focusing on the middle of its price range, to target young families in the area.
The store — one of the company's largest — is expected to open early next month on Albuquerque's west side. It will be the ninth location for the Top 100 company and its fifth American Home store.
"This will be our best store yet, with new display concepts and a fun and inviting atmosphere, which will provide a great shopping experience," said Lee Blaugrund, president and chief executive officer of American Home, which has stores in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Farmington, N.M. and Tucson, Ariz.
For the first time, American will use billboard-size graphics showing landscapes and other scenes inside the stores as backdrops and space dividers, without cutting off sight lines as interior walls might do.
Images of people also will be used, including kids playing as a backdrop to the youth furniture department.
Architectural items from India, such as hand-forged metal gates and carved doors and windows, also will be used as design elements.
"The net impression we're trying to make for the consumer is something that lights up their imagination, draws them into the store and gives them the feeling of being in a light, airy space — something a little different that they can relate to," Blaugrund said.
What's more, if the large signage proves effective, it will be an economical way to lay out the interior of stores in the future, he said.
On the exterior, American will promote events and product with a 14-foot by 28-foot changeable fabric billboard. The first image will be that of actor Jack Palance to promote the Lane leather upholstery line.
Blaugrund would not disclose the cost of the project, or predict sales.
Key suppliers to the store will include American Home regulars such as Broyhill, Lane, Kemp, GuildCraft of California, Rowe and Klaussner. In bedding, the store will carry Simmons, Sealy, Spring Air, Serta and new supplier Tempur-pedic.
Prices will start on the low side and stop at the upper-middle of American's spectrum with sofas, for example, running from $399 to $999. A typical American Home's sofas top out at about $1,999.
American recently redesigned and expanded its bedding departments. The retailer also added Spring Air and Serta, increasing its competitiveness on price and selection with bedding specialty stores, Blaugrund said. Now, it also is adding the upscale Tempur-pedic in four stores, including the newest one.
"We're open to adding other esoteric product to help develop our complete-bedding-center image," he said.
Last year, American had revenues of about $108 million, up from $103 million in 2001.
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