Slow and steady pays off

Few retailers today can claim a 120-year history, and fewer still can say they've been profitable every year since World War II, but Atlanta-based Havertys can.

By Lisa Casinger -- Home Accents Today, 4/1/2005

James Joseph Haverty founded the company and in 1929 took it public. It has paid a dividend to stockholders since 1935 and sales for 2004 increased slightly more than 5% to $784 million. Havertys boasts more than 100 stores across the country, all corporate owned, and all stocked with accessories selected by Carla Greenblatt.

Carla came to the company a little more than seven years ago, soon after this Top-100 furniture chain realized accessories were more than just props to sell furniture. Though she had no experience in furniture or accessories, Carla had lots of experience as a buyer for 90 W.H. Smith hotel gift shop locations. She started at Havertys as a merchandising coordinator.

"I worked for Mr. Wilkerson and Mr. Burdette [now the senior vice president, marketing and the senior vice president, operations, respectively] for six months before I moved to accessories," Carla said. "They hired me, I think, because I'd been in retailing and giftware and they wanted to expand the accessory department."

Carla was promoted to accessory manager in 2002 and as such carries many responsibilities. She sets up accessory programs for the stores, does all promotions, buys for new and remodeled stores and basically manages everything dealing with accessories. With accessory sales of $46.3 million in 2003, that's quite a task.

Carla's accessory programs streamline the buying process for the stores. She shops markets (High Point, Dallas and Atlanta) and works with vendors to select suitable products and sets up the accessory programs. At the same time, she's on the lookout for promotional product for Havertys' 30 full-color tabloid inserts a year.

At any market, Carla will meet with 15 to 25 people a day.

"I have a huge schedule, but I book no appointments," she said. "I first see vendors I have to see at market; then ones I can see elsewhere and then there are the people I'd like to see if I have time."

Carla looks for vendors who have extensive lines and multiple looks she can tweak for her purposes.

Since existing stores buy accessories from programs she sets up, she has made it easier with an accessory catalog that her department of two maintains. It's available to all the stores over the company Intranet.

Like other buyers, Carla does enjoy finding exclusives and said exclusivity is becoming a more important issue, though it's not her main focus. She also buys licensed collections, but looks more at how the product fits with Havertys rather than whose name is on it.

"We do a ton of business with the Kathy Ireland license," she said, "it's been a good marriage for us on price points and style. But I can't say it's necessarily the name that makes a difference. We've advertised it with and without the name and it's done well both times. There are some licenses though that price themselves out of the market and real consumers can't afford them."

Best-selling categories for the chain are rugs and lamps, but Carla admits these are her favorite categories and they typically get the most promotion. Picture frames and candleholders also sell well because there is such variety in the categories.

"We have a visual coordinator in each location and five regional display managers to ensure the standards are being met," Carla said. "They also make sure product is marked down and that we don't have old product hanging out."

Carla works with other departments throughout the company to set the standards used in the stores.

"Brett Huckabee, our director of visual merchandising, travels extensively making sure we set specific paint colors, wall paper standards, etc. and we make that available on the Intranet for the stores," she said. "We have a dos and don'ts of how things should be set. Brett takes pictures of what he calls the 'good, bad and the ugly.' It's a lot of fun, but people never want to be on the bad and the ugly list, especially after they've seen it once."

The regional display managers use digital cameras to capture examples of good displays throughout the chain and forward them to Brett, who adds them to the list of good ideas to share about how the stores should look.

"We've been working with different parts of the company to go department by department and say this is the paint color, this is the signage, the fixtures, etc." Carla said. "They're all going to be a little different because we aren't cookie-cutter, but we want customers to known they're in a Havertys regardless of the city."

"I'll be the first to admit that in the past we were very safe," Carla said. "But you have to be more trend-sensitive if you're going to try to compete with the Joneses. My goal is to find the trends, but also to exit as it starts to trend down and make sure we remove it from our programs and get into the next thing A general trend for us has been to go a lot more casual. For 100 years we were basically traditional."

Casual and a little contemporary are buzzwords at Havertys these days. Accessories follow the lead of upholstery and case goods, which industry-wide have become more modern and relaxed. Havertys, along with other retailers, embraces this theme as a way to reach a younger market and prove "it's not just your parents' furniture store."

Carla's been especially happy the last three or four markets as home accent vendors have made contemporary more economical and softer, not the high-end edgy look that didn't fit with Havertys look.

Color palettes also are changing as Carla brings in more fashionable hues like pink, lime green, reds and begonia to give a little pop.

"Some of the colors I've brought in recently are not something we would have brought in five years ago even if it was trending that way," she said. "Even if pink and chocolate were the two colors you should have, we wouldn't have necessarily bought a bunch of it. But I've tried to bring in a little sampling for the stores and make sure they buy narrow, not deep, so they have more colors to pop in with this casual look to appeal to the customer."

To keep up with trends, Carla reads trade and shelter magazines and shops, saying once a color hits apparel she knows it'll be in home furnishings by the next year. She also realizes the furniture retailer's competition is not just other furniture retailers, but also the big boxes, like Target.

"There are great big-box retailers out there that are a lot quicker than furniture stores at bringing in the stylish home accents," she said. "Target is a great trendsetter. They're amazing and you have to address your competitors whether we want to admit they are or not."

Today, about 60% of the store is branded as Havertys Collection. It's comprised of furniture for the most part, though they have dipped into the home accent well by bringing in a lamp or two, some bedding and a few candlesticks. Carla sees this portion of the business growing, though it will be "slow and deliberate."

Havertys reaches its customers through direct mail, television and newspaper inserts, and the ad focus is more informative than price driven. The inserts may offer a coupon for something small like the one coming out soon where the customer gets a book on design tips just for coming in the store. Buying customers receive a faux leather portfolio with an upcoming coupon, and these repeat customers are more heavily targeted with direct mail.

"The ads now are more HGTV-like," Carla said. "Customers want design tips and information along with great pictures. I've been surprised by the number of calls we get asking about the paint color used in certain shots or what trim we used. Consumers want that type of information."

Some locations offer design services and in-store events vary from location to location as well. Store managers have the leeway to decide on in-store events depending on what's going on in their area, but must adhere to pricing and sales in the ad tabloids. Carla also suggests retail pricing, but stores again set their own prices except for advertised items.

Perhaps one of Carla's best ideas, aside from creating the accessory catalog for the stores, was racking all the rugs instead of having them scattered throughout the store. Rugs still can be found in key strike zones like the dining area and inside the front door, but the rest of the rugs are shown together on a rack, giving customers a complete view of the selection.

One of the worst ideas was trying to bring candles into the store.

"Everyone sells candles," Carla said. "Ours were too expensive and in a furniture store things get moved around so much, they were getting nicked and damaged. I'd brought in pillars and sculpted candles, not jarred ones and we'd promoted them chain-wide."

Despite the ups and downs and myriad responsibilities, Carla is passionate about her job and the company and said the most enjoyable part is shopping markets.

"Market gives me some of my best ideas, some of the showrooms are just incredible," she said. "It's amazing how the industry has changed. October 2004 was fabulous. There were so many new things, new for us, maybe not new for other people. I think a lot of people took higher end contemporary and casual and made it affordable and to me that was very exciting. I also love working with our stores and seeing everything come together. I just got back from Dulles and it just makes me proud to work for this company. It's a beautiful store, it's unbelievable."

A collection of Italian pottery from Sterling Industries makes more of a visual impact when shown together rather than spread about the store. The tapestry from Manual Woodworkers gives an added pop.

Birdhouses from CBK flank a rosy arrangement from Lux Art. Pacific Coast Lighting lamps add to the symmetry and help complete the Shabby Chic ensemble.

Havertys' Dulles store is the latest addition to the 120-year-old chain and a perfect showcase for this Top 100 furniture retailer.

Red accents from Vintage Verandah, CBK and Global Views give a visual pop and are just one example of how the stores can bring in on-trend colors and styles to highlight the furniture.

Home accent sales chain-wide for Havertys are more than $40 million, making them a integral part of the business. Here, a collection of lamps and candleholders from Vintage Verandah accents a gilt and black mirror from Bassett Mirror.

The exposed brick wall look is a great backdrop for this urban aesthetic and the sideboard is topped off with a pair of lamps and an amber collection of vases and bowls from CBK.

Carla works with departments company-wide to set the standards for everything from wall treatments, like the grid work seen here, to flooring and fixtures. This particular wall accentuates the Arts & Crafts theme, which is accessorized with pottery from Global Views, a lamp from The Uttermost Company and frames from Art & Frame Direct.

This Tuscan look is achieved with jewel tones, fringed lamps from CBK, wood frames, rich brocades and accents from Vintage Verandah.

More contemporary looks are making their way into the historically traditional store, as displayed by this Asian-themed table setting featuring Global Views pottery. Various textures add interest like the woven placemats, linen napkins and shoots of grass.