Wolf Furniture meets challenge of tough times

Report from retailer's training expo this summer

David Perry -- Furniture Today, September 28, 2009

ALTOONA, Pa. — Furniture veteran Doug Wolf looked out at the auditorium here full of Wolf Furniture sales associates and vendors and asked an obvious question: "Who thinks these are scary times?"

But then Wolf, the fourth-generation leader of 107-year-old Wolf Furniture, offered his own surprising answer: "I don't think these are scary times. I think they are tough times, but I'm not scared of them. We have dedicated, loyal management here at Wolf Furniture. We have a sales and supplier network that cares about our existence. We have good people working here."

Put another way: Despite its name, this company isn't crying wolf.

Doug, left, and John Wolf of Wolf Furniture welcome Tom Comer of Alliance Sleep Products, back right, and his son, Tommy, to dinner during the Wolf vendor expo.

Doug Wolf's keynote speech launched the company's sixth vendor expo, a training and educational event that brings all of Wolf's sales associates together with dozens of key suppliers for two days of meetings and fellowship. He calls it "one of the defining summer events for our company."

Times have been tough for Bellwood, Pa.-based Wolf, which operates 10 stores and a clearance center in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Furniture, bedding and accessories sales were down about 10% last year, to about $76 million, and the company had a rare round of layoffs to square costs with revenues. But the Top 100 company is turning that situation around this year with a can-do attitude.

"Your company is solid and improving," Doug Wolf said at the vendor expo. "If you are waiting for the recovery," he added, "wake up. The only recovery will be the customer in front of you right now. Don't wait on the recovery. Make plans to learn something for yourself, your customer and your company."

That's one of the keys to the vendor expo here. About half of Wolf's 60 or so vendors set up booths at the Blair County Convention Center here, and each of Wolf's 140 sales associates visited every one of them. The vendors had new products and services to talk about, and the retailer knows that educated sales associates are critical to its success.

"This sends a message that we cannot successfully sell our products without our sales associates," Wolf said. "It's a measure of our respect for them. And for our vendor community this event is certainly an asset."

The session included brief presentations by company officials, among them Gene Stoltz, vice president of merchandising and advertising, who Wolf credits with the idea for the vendor expo. Stoltz urged the company's sales associates to engage in "open and honest" dialogue with the vendors.

The summer timing of the expo is no accident. Company officials say the traditionally quiet season is an ideal time to assemble sales associates and vendors. "This allows the sales associates, on their time, to drill down on product," Wolf said. And there is another advantage: "It gets a pre-Labor Day buzz going." Labor Day kicks off the all-important fall sales season, and Wolf is ready to capitalize with freshly trained sales associates.

The expo also encourages the relationship building that is a hallmark of Wolf's approach to the furniture business.

This Wolf Furniture store in Altoona, Pa., is one of 10 full-line stores the company operates in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The retailer also has a clearance center.

"We have a strong company culture as a family business of putting a name to a face," Wolf said. "We like to renew old friendships."

That was the order of the day at the afternoon reception after the expo ended, and at the nearby country club where Wolf execs and vendors sat down together for dinner on the edge of a rolling golf course.

Wolf plans to stick to its hometown roots. The company added a store in June 2008 and another one this past January, but has no firm plans for additional stores at the moment. "We will look for opportunities to expand in our existing distribution and advertising range," Wolf said.

That's a time-tested formula for Wolf Furniture.