HOM opens Minn. rug store
Changes lead to higher sales tickets
Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, September 8, 2006
PLYMOUTH, Minn. — HOM Furniture has opened its first area rug store and revamped rug departments across the chain, aiming to make the most out of a growing category.
The Top 100 company’s 15,000-square-foot World Rugs is attached to the retailer’s largest store here but has its own entrance. It opened in July with more than 3,000 rugs from key suppliers Oriental Weavers, Sphinx, Momeni and Concord Global as well as goods directly imported from China, India and Belgium.Since the opening, World Rugs has rung up an average sale ticket of nearly $800, double that of the rug departments in HOM stores, said Doug Ernewein, HOM’s rug buyer and also the advertising spokesman for the rug business. He said the company is shooting for World Rugs to do 2.5 times the volume of the former, much smaller department in the Plymouth store, but declined to give a sales projection.Initial consumer response has been excellent, he said. The store has drawn a new destination-oriented consumer, who is willing to pay more for a rug than the average furniture store shopper who picks up a rug. Like HOM, World Rugs is value-oriented. But the value extends across a broader product line and price spectrum, with prices starting at $39 for a 2 by 3-foot size and ranging up to $7,000 for a 10 by 14 vegetable-dyed rug. Ernewein added that the store also has the city’s largest selection of oversized 12 by 18 area rugs.The new store was carved out from a vacant retail space in the HOM facility. Its features include retractable racks, specialty lighting, a wood floor exhibition area and a dedicated sales and design staff. World Rugs also spices up the shopping experience with Asian antique accent pieces and a baby grand player piano.Ernewein, who goes by “Rug Doug” in World Rugs advertising and marketing materials and in the store, said that in the past four years HOM has roughly doubled its rug business after moving to a dedicated sales staff and putting him over the area full-time.He said the new store — and the recent remodel of the rug department in existing HOM stores — should help take the business to the next level. In the HOM stores in greater Minneapolis/St. Paul and in Iowa, the Dakotas and Wisconsin, the departments have been renamed World Rugs and expanded to an average of about 3,000 square feet. HOM also opened up the rug areas by removing walls, added new rug-display equipment and switched to better color-corrected lighting. The warehouse attached to the Plymouth stores serves all the departments.Next door to World Rugs, the retailer also has added The Market at HOM, a new area featuring home accents.Among the grand opening promotions for World Rugs are a daily rug giveaway through Sept. 17 and a $5,000 World Vacation Package for Two drawing.With 11 stores last year, Coon Rapids, Minn.-based HOM was ranked No. 47 on Furniture/Today’s Top 100 with estimated furniture, bedding and accessories sales of $175.4 million.
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HOM opens rug store
Sep 17, 2006
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