Bailey Street looks beyond Bombay
Nourse oversees product design
-- Home Accents Today, 8/1/2005
Bailey Street Trading Co., the importer newly spun off by The Bombay Company, believes its future is bright.
At the Las Vegas Market last week, it unveiled some 30 to 40 SKUs set to ship in August and September, about double its usual April or October slate.
"The best thing we did was to separate ourselves from Bombay," said Greg Waylock, president of the supplier of accent and occasional furniture. "It has opened up some bigger and better opportunities to work with some other retailers. They were unwilling to work with us because of our association with Bombay, or Bombay was uncomfortable having us work with those retailers."
Even as a division of Top 100 specialty retailer Bombay, Bailey Street tried to remain as self-sufficient as possible, Waylock said.
Overseeing product design for the independent company is Alexandra Nourse, vice president of merchandising. She and her husband, Robert E.M. Nourse, whom Waylock has retained as non-executive vice chairman, founded Bombay in Canada in 1980.
After its debut in Vegas, Bailey Street likely will return to 15 or 20 introductions per market, albeit four times a year, twice in High Point and twice in Las Vegas, compared with twice a year previously.
The company plans to maintain about 200 to 300 active SKUs, up from 150 today. That expands the assortment but keeps inventory manageable, Waylock said. Bailey Street has 12 source factories in Asia, and may add others. Alexandra Nourse works with those factories on product design and development.
Waylock's biggest concern when separating from Bombay was losing the support of Bailey Street executive Linda Stephenson, who handled its designs on a part-time basis. Now the company has Nourse as a full-time designer, and she will work with at least two quality-control staff in China on design and associated production issues.
Bailey Street aims to increase its customer base by about 25% in the next 18 months, Waylock said, mainly through its newfound design capabilities.
"While people are looking at our assortment, we will be on to our next round," he said. "That design capability is what sets us apart from everyone else. It's more difficult to manage, but it probably makes our assortment better and fresher."
Bombay said in November 2004 it would sell Bailey Street Trading, launched as a wholesale division of the company in 2000. The sale to Waylock and other management, announced June 1, will allow Bombay to focus on its move to off-mall stores and on improving its balance sheet. The new company is called Bailey Street Holding Company.
Waylock and Red River Ventures, a Dallas private equity firm, partnered to purchase the majority of the company's assets. Bruce Duty, a senior partner with Red River, said, "We were very attracted to (Bailey Street's) growth pattern, and see terrific potential for additional growth."
Publicly owned Bombay reported that Bailey Street's revenues rose from $8.4 million in 2002 to nearly $16 million in 2003. Bombay hired Waylock in February 2001 to help with Bailey Street.
"I didn't want to see four years of effort fall by the wayside," Waylock said. "I thought we developed a terrific base from which there was a lot of potential."
The news that Bailey Street would continue operations pleased Mary Lou Baumann, a former Bombay vice president of human resources and now owner of Heritage House, an occasional and accent furniture store in Weatherford, Texas.
She has carried Bailey Street products since her first year in business four years ago this September. "They have a very good product and they stand behind their product," Baumann said. "They are doing everything they can to get better…. The best is yet to come."
