Dufresne opens two stores in central Canada
By Michael J. Knell -- Furniture Today, November 16, 2009
OTTAWA — Dufresne Furniture & Appliances has opened its first two franchise stores here in the retailer's first major foray into central Canada.
The two former Colonial Furniture stores in the suburbs of Kanata and Gloucester have a combined total of 28,000 square feet of selling space.
Andre Desrochers, along with his sister and business partner, Diane, acquired Colonial in April 2007. The Desrochers also operates four other retail outlets in Ottawa — two sleep shops under the Bedzzz banner and two upholstery specialists called Sofa World.
In March, they announced Colonial would close after operating for more than 75 years. The stores were already part of the Dufresne Retail Service Group, and the Desrochers decided to renovate them and convert them to Dufresne franchises.
“We really changed the stores — they look a lot better than they did,” Desrochers said.
These are the second and third Dufresne franchise stores, after the first one in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Dufresne Group also owns 12 Ashley Furniture Home Stores in western Canada and operates the Dufresne Retail Services Group, a buying group with 54 members, mostly in Ontario and western Canada. TDG also supplies the 140-store North West Co. with furniture and appliances.
Dufresne Group CEO Mark Dufresne said a Dufresne franchise is something like a McDonald's operational model. “It has the disciplines and the systems to produce great results,” he said. “It's not just a matter of taking on our product line and advertising.”
Dufresne franchises are required to operate like the company's eight corporate stores in areas including training, logistics and customer service.
The three franchises are not part of the Retail Services Group and are the responsibility of Debra Jonasson-Young, Dufresne Furniture & Appliances vice president.
Desrochers said that adopting the Dufresne system frees him up to concentrate on growing his business.
“We've changed the way we warehouse — they are excellent when it comes to inventory control,” he said. Payroll is administered by DFA's head office in Winnipeg.
“They give us much more support than we've ever had before — it even comes down to weekly coaching. The expertise they have in all these things you can use in your decision making,” said Desrochers.
Colonial Furniture is the operator of the Dufresne Furniture & Appliances franchise. While the company's ownership remains unchanged, Andre Desrochers will focus on the Dufresne units while Diane will be in charge of the Bedzzz and Sofa World stores.
While the Dufresne Group has planned on franchising for some time, in the past three years it has focused on developing its Ashley store network. “Our Ashley build-out is now complete,” Dufresne said, noting its 12th location was recently opened in Saskatoon.
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