Knoxville Wholesale Furniture Plans Largest Store
Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, September 8, 2011
Harris
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Knoxville Wholesale Furniture will open a clearance center here this fall, its largest store to date, as the Tennessee retailer shows no signs of slowing despite the tough economic climate.
A $500,000 interior and exterior facelift is under way on a former 130,000-square-foot Food Lion/Kmart building the company is leasing on Kingston Pike, near West Town Mall, said Tim Harris, Knoxville Wholesale Furniture president and owner.
With 112,000 square feet of selling space, the store will be more than twice the size of an existing clearance center that it replaces and will offer an expanded assortment and new displays for the company. It's expected to open in early November.
Harris said the retailer will introduce about three "new concept areas in the store," but he declined to identify them just yet, with the exception of an Ashley's Furnish 123 store within the store.
Harris, whose four-store business did an estimated $36 million in furniture, bedding and accessories sales in 2010, expects to reach about $40 million this year. With the new location, sales should hit the mid-40s range in 2012, he said.
"We're going to have the biggest and best line in east Tennessee of core promotional product from Ashley, Simmons/United, Jackson/Catnapper, Lane, Corinthian, all of our bedding partners (including) Sealy and Southerland and many more vendors," he said. Among other key suppliers he named are Cheers/ManWah, Liberty, Samuel Lawrence and New Classics.
In addition to a core lineup, "we're also going to buy a lot of deals," Harris said, noting that many of Knoxville Wholesale's suppliers have items they are discontinuing or clearing out that his store will bring in and sell at a discount. Harris was at last month's Tupelo Furniture Market looking for goods for the new store.
The clearance center will emphasize "buy it today, get it today," with an on-site consumer pickup area, he added.
Harris called the site on Kingston Pike "probably the best location in Knoxville," near the best mall and a location he has been pursuing for months.
"We feel like the Bearden area (of Knoxville) has been grossly under-served from a furniture retail standpoint, and we feel like this new clearance center will become a destination for any and all furniture buyers who are looking for great furniture at the absolute lowest possible prices," he said in a press release.
"We're very excited to be able to open in November and be there during the Christmas holidays because that area is just absolutely swamped by consumers at that time," he added later. Harris said the store will create about 30 jobs, including delivery drivers and other support employees.
In late 2008, as the stock market was crashing, Harris opened his second full-line, full-service store, a 93,000- square-foot showroom with an attached 130,000-square-foot distribution center on Old Callahan Drive in North Knoxville. Since that time, through the recession, business for the company has grown 52%, he said. In mid-2009, Knoxville Wholesale added a fourth store, taking over the operations of a local Ashley Furniture HomeStore.
Knoxville Wholesale's home furnishings market share stands at more than 40% today, Harris said - up from 24% in early 2009 - and "we think we can grow that still," he said.
Harris attributes the retailer's success in tough times to three things:
► Its people. A former football coach and schoolteacher, Harris said the company trains and motivates great people and has a low turnover rate.
► Culture. Harris said he makes no apologies for the retailer's Christian culture and "having people in an environment where we focus on being a good person and having a positive, can-do attitude."
► Business model. Harris credited non-competing retailers, such as the owners of Jackson, Miss.-based Miskelly Furniture and logistics expert Bill Lindler of United Steel Storage, for guidance. He said Lindler was "very instrumental in showing us how to be more efficient in our warehouse." Harris said most of the successful large furniture retailers operate under similar models - bringing containers and other big buys in to one central distribution facility and then distributing the goods in a market area.
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