Maine Cottage brings its coastal style to Florida
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, September 15, 2008
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Maine Cottage, a specialist in upscale coastal home furnishings, has opened its third store, and its first in Florida, to further penetrate a market where it's already doing well through catalog and online sales.
The 5,000-square-foot store in the historical Clematis Street shopping district is off to a good start, even though the bulk of its target customers are somewhere else during the summer, said David Petersen, vice president.
“It's really special to be growing during trying times and to be in a position where it makes sense to open a new store,” he said.
The Yarmouth, Maine-based company — which designs its colorful lines of living room, bedroom and other home furnishings and contracts the manufacturing out to various suppliers — sells to consumers across the country through its Web site at mainecottage.com. It has stores in Yarmouth and Charleston, S.C.
Opening in Florida was an easy decision, Petersen said. “We have lots of customers here that already know the company and many more who have been waiting for us to open here.”
He said Florida's weak housing market and challenging economy is not expected to be an issue, because Maine Cottage targets an affluent consumer less affected by the slump.
“We're not targeting people buying investment properties,” he said. “These are properties that these families enjoy and have been enjoying for years.”
Indeed, the tough economic climate helped the retailer get a great deal on the store lease and recruit “fantastic help” — all of whom had worked in the home furnishings industry before, he said.
Petersen estimated Maine Cottage's overall investment was about $530,000 and said that it expects to do about $700,000 in sales through the rest of the year. Eventually, the store should do $3.5 million to $4 million in annual sales, but Petersen said it probably will take three or four years to get there.
Maine Cottage's total sales last year were just over $5 million and have grown 25% a year for the past five years, he said. This year, sales are up about 16% without the West Palm store. With it, the company expects to end the year up 18% to 19%, he said.
At 5,000 square feet, the West Palm location is “our prototype new store size,” Petersen said, slightly smaller than the Yarmouth showroom but larger than the Charleston store, which the company opened in 2003.
It features a full line of upscale coastal home furnishing including upholstery primarily from C.R. Laine, outdoor and bedroom furniture and a new line of clear-finished dining room furniture that Petersen said has been successful since it was introduced last year.
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