Room enough for greatness

By Lisa Casinger -- Home Accents Today, 2/1/2005

The Great Indoors, headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Ill., bills itself as "a home decorating and remodeling store with everything under one roof." Customers can find everything from accent furniture, appliances and area rugs to lighting, bedding and kitchen cabinets amid more than 80,000 in-stock items and 700,000 special order options.

A division of Sears, the 17-store chain was founded in 1997 with its first store in Lone Tree, Colo. Initially Sears had what some called lofty goals, expecting the company to reach 150 stores by 2007. By 2003 there were 21 stores and it was time to rethink the plan.

That year The Great Indoors announced a refinement of its "business strategy to establish a profitable operating model built on the stores' exceptional customer appeal," and in July it hired Catherine David as vice president and general manager, responsible for merchandising, marketing and operations. David replaced Jeff Jones, who was promoted to executive vice president of merchandising operations for Sears in April.

Today there are stores in Chandler and Scottsdale, Ariz.; Burbank, Chino Hills, and Irvine, Calif.; Broomfield, Colo.; Deerfield, Lombard and Schaumburg, Ill.; Gaithersburg, Md.; Novi, Mich.; Woodbridge, N.J.; Las Vegas; Columbus, Ohio; and Farmers Branch and Houston, Texas.

Chris Wozniak, whose title is senior merchant for home decor, joined the company almost six years ago to open the second store in Scottsdale. Prior to that, he spent 20 years in the department store business at Dayton Hudson/Marshall Field's as well as a few years in the duty free industry.

"When I took over this position, one of the things on my plate was how we start getting exclusive product into the stores," Wozniak said. "There wasn't a formal program in place at the time, but we knew we wanted to differentiate our mix."

Aside from being one of three buyers for home, Wozniak works with designers and vendors to develop product exclusive to The Great Indoors and works closely with the director of visual to pull together the display footprints that will be used in all the stores. This exclusive product combined with direct imports represents about half of the home business at The Great Indoors.

"Our format and merchandise mix are what set us apart," Wozniak said. "Nobody else is duplicating our format and our customers love the stores. Our best customers visit a store at least once a month."

These customers, affluent women looking to redecorate or remodel their homes, regularly receive direct mail pieces as well as access to a plethora of in-store events. These events vary by location, but include things like cooking classes, floral arranging, counter top seminars and more.

"We do a lot of how-to seminars," Wozniak said. "Every month there's something going on. Consumers are inspired by all of the home shows, but they're afraid and don't know how to get started; we help them. We say here's what you need to look for, this is how you do it, here's how we can help and here are some choices you'll be making. Getting them started in the process is comforting to them."

While merchandising a home store by room isn't new, The Great Indoors' version is a unique and user-friendly twist that seems to be working. The store is divided into The Great Room, The Great Kitchen, The Great Bathroom and The Great Bedroom, and each area is surround by surfaces for those rooms like countertops, tile, rugs, flooring, window treatments, paint, etc. Within each "room," style statements or trends are pulled together to make it easy for the customer to find multiple things that she can use.

"We have a group of senior merchants that work with independent designers to come up with our trends," Wozniak said. "We determine what the trends or looks will be for our company before we get to the shows. Certainly what vendors are showing can be an influence, but we set our own trends."

Traditional, transitional and contemporary lifestyles are represented in the stores, and within those areas, Wozniak and the other buyers and designers develop the specific looks. For example, one contemporary look is Asian-influenced with a clean updated feel; traditional is casual with a Tuscan or European flavor and transitional is coastal.

"All of the stores are displayed by lifestyle," Wozniak said. "However, in the more traditional markets like Chicago and L.A., the product mix is skewed to that, whereas Denver, Detroit and New Jersey are skewed more contemporary."

Wozniak works with the director of visual, especially for high visibility areas like home decor to set vignette prototypes.

"We set the prototype, take pictures, describe the layout and then put it together for the balance of our stores to execute," he said. "There is some flexibility at the store level for other displays and merchandising though, and we have very talented people in our stores who can take the merchandise and figure out how to make it look good on their own. We don't prototype everything."

One of Wozniak's best recent ideas was to jump full force into the fall/holiday market. The Great Indoors always has carried some seasonal merchandise, but in 2004 Wozniak bought and displayed in a more unified, cohesive manner.

"It was hugely successful," he said. "We really went after the fall seasonal business last year, Halloween, harvest and Christmas. We felt there was a void in the market. Halloween is one of the fastest growing seasonal categories whether it's decorating or entertaining and we wanted to take advantage of that. Plus, I'm a Christmas fanatic. People came over to my house this year and said 'Oh my God, it looks like Christmas exploded in here.' I love Christmas, so for me it was a labor of love to put this together. The biggest challenge was narrowing the assortment; financially you have to make it work."

Best-selling home accent categories are accent furniture, decorative accessories and permanent botanicals, though Wozniak has noted a growth in frames, candles, framed art and seasonal items.

Slow moving merchandise gets marked down to clearance anytime after four to six weeks or six months, depending on the category and pricing in general is decided by the buyers.

"We're entrusted with pricing what we buy," Wozniak said. "However, our overall corporate direction is that we're targeting an upper moderate to better customer and the merchandise we select and price needs to fit with that. I spend a lot of time as a buyer asking people what they'd pay for things. We spend time as a group making pricing decisions. We run a modified high-low pricing system and we run sales on certain categories but other things are everyday low price. A lot of our pricing decisions are based on the category."

Though Wozniak enjoys most everything about his job, the product development, buying and merchandising, keeping up with SKUs for 17 stores is quite a challenge. Fortunately, a new reporting system was recently implemented, which provides more timely information that helps with purchasing decisions.

Deciding what to buy also can be a challenge.

"There was a little wine rack I picked out and thought was going to sell well," Wozniak said. "I bought a whole container of them. They didn't sell as well as I anticipated, but we moved through it. One of my challenges is that if we're not making mistakes, then we're not testing enough or being risky enough. We're not finding what's next and what's new."

Vendors could make the buying process much easier, Wozniak said, if they'd provide "timely and accurate information right off the bat." When he walks into a showroom he wants to know the price, where it ships from, etc. — all the details that will enable him to make a quick decision rather than going back and forth.

"The best advice I ever received was to always challenge myself to do better," Wozniak said. "As good as our business is, we're already thinking how to top it. Just because we've had a good year, we have to do better. I had a boss tell me once, if you're standing still people will pass you by, you have to keep moving forward."

Moving forward and remaining focused are how Wozniak remains successful at The Great Indoors.

For high visibility areas like home decor, Wozniak works with the director of visual to set vignette prototypes.

Rolling shelving units make changing displays easier.

Permanent botanicals, one of the best-selling categories, are prominently placed in many displays.

One of the contemporary looks in stores now is a clean, Asian-influenced aesthetic, fully loaded with everything from tabletop and furniture to soft goods and rugs.