Sheely's grows on deep roots
By Marc Barnes -- Furniture Today, August 4, 2008
North Lima, Ohio — These days, Sheely's Furniture and Appliance has an 80,000- square-foot showroom, a 200,000-square-foot warehouse, more than 150 employees and a well-established market presence near the Ohio and Pennsylvania border.
But its beginnings were much more modest.
More than 50 years ago, Sheely's founder, Dale Sheely Sr., who was a math teacher, needed to find a new career. Dale and his wife, Alice, had had six kids in nine years. Financially, the ends would not only not meet, they wouldn't even wave at each other.
Dale Sheely moved from the classroom to a job site as an electrician. Someone suggested that there was more money to be made if he branched out and sold used water heaters. He bought a few and set them up in a small, cinderblock building near his house.
By day, Dale Sheely would wire houses. Sherry Sheely, the daughter-in-law of the founder, said that a line had been rigged from the door of the block building to the back door of the house, so that when someone entered the block building, a bell went off in the house. If it did, Alice Sheely would scoop up whichever child she was dealing with at that moment, carry them over to that building and wait on the customer, then return home.
"You could not do that today," said Sherry Sheely, the company's sales manager.
The water heaters sold well, and the electrical business stayed steady. As Dale Sheely made money, he plowed it back into the business — and expanded the little building again and again. By the mid-1950s, he added appliances and furniture, sold off the electrical part of the business and kept expanding, never borrowing money and never taking on a business partner.
"He did everything as he got the money to do it and he didn't jeopardize the future of the employees or himself and his family," said Sherry Sheely.
Dale Sheely always recognized the importance of customer service. Sherry Sheely said she has heard stories about how he would agree to sell a television or a dining room set to a customer, then go to his own house, unplug the set that his family had been watching or the dining room table where they had just had dinner, put it on his pickup truck and deliver it to the customer.
Those earlier habits of doing what it takes to take care of the customer still ring true today: Sheely's is one of the few furniture stores to employ four fulltime upholsterers. It also has a woodworking shop that is more advanced than some furniture factories.
Reaching out
But in addition to hard work and thrift, Sheely's success also has had a touch of good luck. The store is located about a dozen miles from the Pennsylvania state line and, particularly in the early days, shoppers needed little convincing to drive into Ohio, where the sales tax was much less.
And while the population around North Lima remains somewhat sparse, the Pittsburgh market is just an hour's drive away.
In 2001, Sheely's began marketing to the Pittsburgh metro area on an experimental basis, and in 2003, and it expanded the effort into a regular program.
Word soon got out about Sheely's selection, service and shopping experience. Over the years, Sheely's has delivered furniture to Columbus, Ohio, and Buffalo, N.Y., both about three hours away. And there was the time when the company delivered a container of furniture to Greece.
"Mostly, these were people who lived here and moved away, and they couldn't find the quality and the price anywhere," said Sherry Sheely. "So they come back and purchase here."
By 1980, the store had moved into its present space. In 1993, Dale Sheely Sr. retired and sold the business to his six children. Starting off with the strong foundation that their father left them with, the family set a course to make the store even stronger.
"We didn't do any advertising until, I would say, in the 1990s," said Sherry Sheely. "And we didn't even take credit cards until the late 1980s. It was strictly cash or check. When my father-in-law had this business, he didn't believe in extending credit.
"He came from the old school, just like my grandmother and my parents — if you can't afford it, then you don't get it."
The Sheelys decided on a Marketing 101 approach: Point out how you are both different and better than the competition. And communication starts with management.
"One of the things that you really have to be is positive, from the management, from the owners, all the way down," said Sheely. "Employees have to be shown your excitement, your positive mental attitude and make them feel like this is really something, that we have really got something here."
It's also important to listen to employees, Sheely added.
"It is important that you always have young people, fresh ideas people, people that have very creative minds, because it is so easy to think that 'this has worked so we will keep on doing it,' " said Sheely. "But what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.
"You always have to think and live outside of the box. This is how it is, was, and will always be."
Store as brand
About 10 years ago, Sheely's embarked on a major branding campaign. The store called in a local advertising agency, Prodigal Media, which came up with ideas to position Sheely's as a destination with the tagline, "Furnish Your Life." The marketing message also keyed on the retailer's everyday low prices.
"We have always branded Sheely's as the brand — not Broyhill, or La-Z-Boy, or Thomasville," said Sheely. "You are buying Sheely and that has been what has kept us alive."
Sheely' focuses on products in the middle to high range, including Stanley, Riverside, Peters-Revington, Lane, Flexsteel, Fairfield Chair, Bradington-Young, Hooker and Vaughan-Bassett.
Recently, Sheely's has been targeting female consumers, with an appeal to "dress your home," by furnishing it to reflect their own personalities.
Those appeals are in sharp contrast to the local retail competition, which Sherry Sheely says tends to use canned national ads claiming that this week's sale is the sale of the century, featuring 75% off with five-year financing.
"Why would you want to take someone out of the market for five years?" said Sheely. "That seems to me to defeat the purpose of being in business, because you should want to sell them forever."
In addition to advising Sheely's to brand itself, Prodigal Media introduced some unlikely brand ambassadors: Children. Three times, with three different groups, Prodigal has produced song-and-dance TV commercials with Sheely's Kids — children dressed up in grown-up up clothes, dancing around the furniture, while singing the Sheely's jingle, an infectious, bouncy tune.
"We have had bus drivers who will say that kids are humming the song on school buses," said Sheely. "I've been in Target and Wal-Mart and heard moms humming the song with a child. That child is someday going to be a consumer and buy furniture, and someday, that child will buy Sheely's."
Sheely's also develops a close bond with its customers through its many charitable activities and sponsorships with local sports teams, schools and charities. Sheely's has been an area sponsor for Tod Children's Hospital through the Children's Miracle Network Campaign and also teamed up with the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Business has been good for Sheely's this year, despite the soft economy, according to Sheely. The retailer is well positioned for tough times, carrying no debt.
But because expenses have been increasing, the retailer has conducted a company-wide review to determine areas where costs can be reduced. Delivery drivers now turn off their trucks any time they stop and their routes are carefully examined for efficiency.
In addition, Sheely's has implemented new reporting systems on the inventory side to make sure products stay in the warehouse for as little time as possible. Sheely's also does an ongoing vendor analysis to compare profit margins, identifying which items are most and least profitable and why.
