Raymour: Big growth through great service
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, August 19, 2007
Liverpool, N.y. — Last year, during one of the worst business climates the furniture industry has faced in decades, Raymour & Flanigan added 11 net new stores and grew its furniture and bedding business 19% to $772 million.
The year before, the retailer's furniture and bedding sales rose 23.4%. In 2004, business was up nearly 15%.
"In our mind, growth comes from two avenues," said Raymour CEO Neil Goldberg, "growth of new stores and new markets, and the other is market share growth and comp store sales increases."
That strategy hasn't changed as the upstate New York retailer has continued to fill in and reach out — to markets such as Philadelphia, Boston, metro New York and, most recently, Providence, R.I.
"We're trying to be the best furniture retailer in the Northeast," Goldberg said. "And our approach is to continue to service customers in a way they find most helpful and consistent. Enhancing the customer shopping experience is where we see the opportunity for us to be the best furniture retailer."
If that happens to lead to Raymour & Flanigan being the largest furniture retailer in the Northeast, Goldberg said he won't complain. Indeed, the company may already be there as no other retailer on Furniture/Today's ranking of Top 100 U.S. furniture stores ranks higher in the Top 100 (No. 11) with a concentration of stores solely in the Northeast.
Today, Raymour & Flanigan has more than 4,000 employees, and it will probably do close to $1 billion in total sales this year, said Goldberg, who leads the family-owned business with his brother Steven Goldberg and cousin Michael Goldberg.
Raymour has been on a tear for years, and may have just been hitting its stride about two-and-half years ago with the acquisition of two former Huffman Koos locations in Woodbridge, N.J., and Carle Place, Long Island. Subsequently, it acquired two Futurama Furniture stores in New Jersey and has been building its presence in the greater New York area ever since. Today, 13 of the retailer's more than 70 stores are in metro New York with the recent opening of its first Manhattan unit.
Earlier this year, the Top 100 retailer entered Providence, R.I., with the acquisition of long-time retailer Alperts. Goldberg said it wasn't a market that Raymour was considering entering anytime soon, but thanks to the family's relationship with former co-owner Hershel Alpert, Raymour decided to pursue the opportunity.
Backing up Raymour's growth is a deep commitment to customer service. Early this year, Raymour completed work on a 10,000-square-foot Leadership Development Institute on its Liverpool campus. It has been running its top management and other employees through the program ever since.
Raymour invested more than $1 million in the facility, including state-of-the-art equipment and a curriculum developed by its senior executives along with academic leaders and other professionals. The program includes self assessment, peer-group feedback and other educational and professional development.
"Our hope is we'll put our top 200 management people through this seven-day program in the first year to year-and-a-half of its existence," Goldberg said. "It's unique to the furniture industry and, in some respects, unique to most businesses.
Goldberg said Raymour couldn't have grown as fast as it has over the last 15 to 20 years without investing in great people, who can grow at the same rate.
Raymour continues to be active on the Web, too, investing an estimated $200,000 to $300,000 a year over the last few years to improve its online presence, which includes e-commerce.
All of this is not to say business is easy. Indeed, Goldberg said he can't remember a more challenging time in his 30-year career.
"And the factors impacting business conditions today are so vast ... it's difficult to pinpoint one critical challenge we face," he said.
The consumer remains under tremendous pressure — faced with diminishing disposable incomes, higher gas prices and escalating living costs, he said.
"But I also think our industry over the years hasn't worked hard enough to make the shopping experience pleasurable and easy for the consumer," he added. "We all have to work much harder today to overcome some of these mistakes."
Goldberg said there is no silver bullet. He said his team works to continually improve performance, which "will ultimately attract more customers and allow them to spend a greater share of their disposable income on home furnishings."
When that happens, Raymour will be waiting with more stores in more markets staffed by better-trained people.
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