3-way marketing debuts at Furnitureland South
Giant retailer integrates Web, catalog and in-store displays
By Marc Barnes -- Furniture Today, January 1, 2006
Jamestown, N.C. — If American consumers haven't heard about Furnitureland South yet, they will.
A new marketing focus combining print advertising, the Internet and in-store displays that match the illustrations in the retailer's catalog will see to that. Visitors can view a room scene in the catalog or on the Web site, and then travel to Furnitureland South and walk through the room they have seen.
Billed as the world's largest home furnishings showplace — and at 1 million square feet, the title is justified — Furnitureland South recently came out with its 2006 catalog in print and a 30,000-square-foot copy in reality.
"You can go through, starting at page one and walk through the catalog page by page," said John Cunningham, director of catalog merchandising. "We have set them as closely as possible as the rooms in the catalog — they have the exact merchandise in them."
Whole-room approach
Marketing furniture in room groupings is a departure from the way it's done in many retail outlets, which have row upon row of sofas, or dining sets, or recliners — or groupings by gallery, where everything is made by a certain vendor. But Furnitureland South takes it a step further by setting up the furniture in room settings — 80 rooms in all, from a variety of different manufacturers — and offering to sell everything in the room.
That includes the rugs on the floor, the lamps on the tables and the artwork hanging on the walls. Furnitureland South will even tell consumers the color of the Sherwin-Williams paint that the room is painted in. Some customers have called in, asked for the entire room just as it appears in the catalog — and gotten it.
Others take a different approach. "Some will say, 'I like that look' and it gives the salesperson a starting point for developing that customer's home," said Terrie Silver, director of marketing for Furnitureland South.
Silver said the catalog and the rooms to match are now in their second incarnation. The gallery will stay intact until August of this year, when the third catalog is printed and new matching showrooms are set up.
In all, 450,000 out of the press run of 500,000 catalogs are mailed out, with the remainder reserved for the store and other marketing events.
Silver said that the catalog goes to consumers who have previously purchased at Furnitureland South, as well as to prospects that are targeted by a data mining company across an eight-state region. Targets include high-income professionals with families as well as empty nesters over the age of 55.
"We didn't want to drop this catalog from an airplane," she said. "This was not reactionary, but it was a piece of our marketing strategy that was missing.
"In 2006, more and more people will be shopping on the Internet and in catalogs and we wanted to get ahead of the curve."
Shelter ads reinforce message
To reinforce these efforts, Furnitureland South has begun running national advertising in shelter magazines such as Traditional Home and Elle Décor for the first time. The advertising leads consumers to the Web site — which the company says has 110,000 unique visitors per month — where they can either order the printed catalog or view the catalog online.
"One builds on another which builds on another," Silver said.
The Web site allows shoppers to either begin a traditional search for the kind of furniture that they want; to work with a layout design template, so that they can experiment with different furniture arrangements; or to visit the rooms themselves, which provide a starting point for decorating.
The furniture pictured on the retailer's Web site can be enlarged to show the wood grain or details of the upholstery fabric.
From there, the order is forwarded to a sales and design associate for fulfillment. The customer can go back onto the site to track the order online.
"Our online sales are not true e-commerce," Silver said. "There is no sell-through.
"It can take 12 weeks, and we have an entirely different quality, with better value and better pricing."
Building the catalog and the Web site took time. Technology had to be upgraded, and the furniture had to be found.
Cunningham and his team went to furniture markets and hand-picked the casegoods, the chairs and the accessories —and the wall colors as well.
"We researched catalogs and found that everything was brown, brown, brown," Cunningham said. "I am all about color. There are probably 100 different colors used up here. Most people are afraid of color and this helps them get over that."
Accordingly, greens, beiges and vibrant reds, blues and yellows and even retro 1960s wallpapers serve as backdrops for the rooms in the catalog.
In all, 12 collections are represented. Many include seating, dining and bedroom pieces that are gathered around a central theme — even if the styles differ from each other.
The collections include Lodge, leather and Arts and Crafts furniture that hearkens to the outdoors; Leather, which includes upholstery, home entertainment and case goods; New Country, eclectic pieces dressed in classic fabrics; and Casual, which blends both contemporary and traditional elements. The Entertaining collection includes theater seating, game tables and entertainment units, while the Lofty Living collection is a series of seating, bedroom and entertainment pieces with simple, pared-down lines. The Retro collection mixes themes from the 1930s and 1950s, with pieces that include elements from Hollywood's golden age, while Metro features a more cosmopolitan look and feel.
East to West combines Western designs with an Asian aesthetic, while New Classics mixes traditional with modern pieces. Grandeur is both ornate and formal. Two collections — Office and Youth — are the only ones centered primarily on an area of the home, rather than on a style theme.
Surprise twists
And there were some surprises. One wall had movie posters, which sold so well that this time Cunningham added some art of enlarged theater tickets — and it is flying off the shelves.
Right about now, Cunningham's office is a wreck, with fabric swatches and sketches and room layouts, as he prepares for the next catalog.
"I tell people that when you are marketing a million square feet, think about a home that is 2,500 square feet," he said. "That's 400 of those houses. This is a neighborhood, a really large one, that we have to maintain every day."
Cunningham is keeping his fingers crossed that producing the next catalog won't be as dangerous as this one was.
The Lodge section was shot on location at a private home down a country road in a nearby North Carolina county. None of the pictures show the semis that brought all the furniture and camera equipment and lights. They also don't show the tornado that struck nearby.
"People were calling us and saying that it was on the way," said Cunningham.
"The lights were flickering and I was holding an umbrella over a $50,000 digital camera."
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