Z Gallerie bites into Big Apple
By Carole Sloan -- Furniture Today, April 9, 2006
New York — There's a new letter in this city's trendy SoHo area — a Z.
Mike and Joe Zeiden and their sister, Carol Malfatti, overcame the daunting challenges that Manhattan poses in merchandising furniture — including arranging handling and delivery and obtaining enough floor space — to open their first Z Gallerie store here.
"We knew coming in that New York was special, different," said Mike Zeiden, chief financial officer of the Gardena, Calif.-based Top 100 store owned by the three siblings. "We came in here with our eyes wide open, and we know it's going to be a learning experience as we go along. But we're not treating the store with kid gloves; we're not taking our eye off our other stores."
Joe Zeiden is CEO and Malfatti is vice president, merchandising of the lifestyle home furnishings retailer.
A key element in the furniture part of the business, Malfatti said, is the use of in-store catalogs showing additional pieces that are not on the floor, especially large-scale dressers and armoires.
Z Gallerie, which started in 1979 as a poster shop in California, is a fast-growing home furnishings specialty chain with 2005 sales of about $208 million, said Mike Zeiden. He said same-store sales rose 7% last year, on top of a 2004 jump of 13%.
Posters and wall art remain an important part of the chain's mix of 12 merchandise categories, including home textiles, furniture, decorative accessories, tabletop and books.
The store here is the 70th for the company, which is now in 24 states. Planned stores on the "definite" schedule for this year include units in Baton Rouge, La., Corona, Calif., Charlotte, N.C., and Louisville, Ky. One or two additional units are in negotiation, with possibilities in Chicago, Florida, Texas and Colorado.
"Depending on our response in New York, we would like to increase our presence in the Northeast," said Mike Zeiden.
In developing the store here, a 12,000-square-foot unit on two levels, the trio knew that services and training would be critical. "Nowhere else have we had such intensive training and prepping of management," Zeiden said.
Initially, large items such as furniture will be shipped from the company's California warehouse. Probably by mid-year, the new Atlanta warehouse — it opened in September — will take over distribution for New York.
Zeiden said the store's prices are the same here as in California and elsewhere. "The first reactions from customers were that they were amazingly low. It's a nice advantage," he said.
The SoHo store's second level features the Studio, "a lighter, more feminine approach with all crisp colors. It needed to be separate from the rest," Malfatti said.
She said that, like other Z Galleries, the New York store will be get new collections twice a year. For this season, the key palette is chocolate brown, light blue and lots of ecru.
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