Gardner-White furniture stores in Best Buy to open Sept. 21

Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, September 12, 2012

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Gardner-White will open its two Detroit-area new concept stores within Best Buy stores later this month with parties that will include prize giveaways and a $10,000 Gardner-White shopping spree.

The nearly 8,000-square-foot store on Telegraph Road within the Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Best Buy and the 10,000-square-foot showroom on West Oaks Drive in Best Buy's Novi, Mich., store, will open Sept 21.

Gardner-White will follow with three-day grand opening parties starting Sept. 28, featuring the shopping spree and $25,000 in other prize giveaway, including a 51-inch Samsung TV, leather sectionals, motion sofas, entertainment centers, mattresses, Kindle Fire tablets and other electronics

The stores also will give away DVD copies of "The Avengers" with any purchases.

Staffed by Gardner-White product specialists and support crew, both stores will feature motion and leather upholstery, entertainment centers and bedding from Tempur-Pedic, Serta's iComfort and Perfect Sleeper lines, Simmons Beautyrest and Restonic. Furniture suppliers include Lane, Klaussner, Natuzzi, Man Wah/Cheers and Ashley.

The Auburn Hills, Mich.-based Top 100 company said the stores mark the first time a major furniture retailer has built new stores inside the existing locations of a major consumer electronics retailer.

Gardner-White President Steve Tronstein told Furniture/Today earlier that the move is an extension of a collaboration with the consumer electronics giant that began in 2009. He said it will give the furniture retailer the ability to cast a wider net for furniture and bedding sales in a high-traffic environment, including consumers it may not be seeing in its full-line stores.

In a recent release, Tronstein called the new concept "the ultimate in consumer convenience."

He has called the two locations test stores, but hasn't disclosed future plans should they be successful.

Gardner-White is No. 59 on Furniture/Today's Top 100 with estimated furniture, bedding and accessories sales of $95 million last year, up 6.7% from 2010