Retail Update   

A vignette from Arts by Alexander, the second of our Feb. retail profiles, is featured on this month's cover. Arts by Alexander is about eight miles from Home Accents Today's Greensboro office and is a pretty special place for me. Not only is it the first "real" home accents store I can ever remember visiting (as a teenager in the 1970s), but just yesterday I learned that the location is the site of my parents' very first date (more on that later).

Last summer, following the publication of our May, 2009, Retail Stars list (to which Arts by Alexander was named), I ...Read More

The February Retail Profiles feature two stores that really know how to get creative with their space and product mix. First up, Avant Garden and Home of Carmel Valley, California. The shop's name literally grew out of owner Randi Andrews' talent for mixing in a little of the "avant garde" among her selection of home accents, gifts and garden decor. Avant Garden and Home's story can be read here.

Minnesota home decor, gift and candle manufacturer Midwest-CBK announced the winners of the company’s third annual “Show Us Your Sparkle” in-store display contest for independent retailers. Midwest-CBK sponsored the contest to bring attention and recognition to independent retailers who have shown creativity and excellence in retail display and merchandising, one of the key elements to driving traffic and sales. Winners include:

* First Place: Paddington Station in Ashland, Oregon (photo, right)
* Second Place: Linders Greenhouses in St. Paul, Minnesota
* Third Place: The Garden Hut in Fuquay Varina, Nor...Read More

Last month , Onecoast unveiled Snap Retail’s Trafficbuilder, a marketing tool for retailers that, among other things, can automate emails and posts to a store’s Twitter and Facebook pages. For example, “My new shipment of monogrammed mugs from Mudpie arrive tomorrow; 10% off to the first 3 buyers.” Onecoast is demonstrating Trafficbuilder at the Las Vegas Market this week.
 

Finding a way to drive business using social media is coming up quite often in conversation these days. During a retailer roundtable discussion last month, one shopowner announced she had just hired a virtua...Read More

Next Tuesday morning in Las Vegas, I'll be assisting our editor in chief, Jenny Heinzen York, with an interactive panel discussion about what's happening at retail. We'll be joined by Jeff Selik, president of Hillside Furniture in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.; Chrysteen Braun, Aegean Designing Whims, Los Alamitos, Calif.; and A Suraphong Liengboonlertchai, simply (and better) known as "A," of Simplicity Decor in Kirkland, Wash.

Following a presentation that includes a few highlights from exclusive Home Accents Today and Furniture/Today-HGTV research, we'll invite these retailers to join us in discussing the consumer mindset, holiday sales reports, buying plans, store operations, social networking and other timely tidbits.

If you plan to be at the Las Vegas Market, I h...Read More

Mooresville, N.C. -- A 100-year-old former textile mill is being converted into a retail/wholesale center for furniture and accessories. New York-based Concord Global Trading acquired the 38-acre site for $500,000 with plans to open its third Wow Home Furnishings center in May. Concord operates Wow stores in Fort Lawn, S.C., and Jefferson, Ga., also former mill sites. Home to the Mooresville Cotton Mill in 1898, the mill, which contains 755,000 square feet of indoor space, operated most recently as a Burlington Industries plant.

Mobile, Ala. -- Pat LaGrange, Rebecca Rossler and Becky Nance opened Inside Up, a new downtown destination for fashion, art and home furnishings. The shop is on North Conception Street across from Bienville Square. 

Asheville, N.C. -- Dwellings home furnishings store has opened a second location, in Biltmore Park Town Square. Dw...Read More

The winner of HomeFurnishings.com’s $5,000 shopping spree is Peggy Rydzewski, who shops at Chris Furniture in Livonia, Mich. 

Sponsored by the National Home Furnishings Association, the consumer website provides decorating and furniture shopping advice and connects shoppers with local HomeFurnishings.com-certified furniture retailers.

Karin Mayfield, NHFA’s senior director of industry promotion called the contest a “huge success.” “The sweepstakes drew so much attention to our new HomeFurnishings.com website that we have decided to start the new year off with not only another $5000 'Inspired Living Begins Here' home furnishing shopping spree but a Ser...Read More

Julie Windsor of Beat Street, Winnetka, Ill., was named December Retailer of the Month by The Chicago Market: Living and Giving. The ROTM program is designed to acknowledge exceptional retailers who are making a difference in the gift industry, as well as to provide inspiration to other retailers who can benefit from the winners’ stories. 

Windsor opened Beat Street in the fall of 2003  in a space of about 500 square feet, “the smallest somewhat retail space&qu...Read More

An interesting thing happened when I solicited retailers' picks for January's annual In & Out list — I received about three times as many "Ins" as "Outs." Is it the result of better inventory management? Positive thinking? Or, in these recessionary times, a sort of "Stand by Your Manufacturer" loyalty? As in years past, the results represent a variety of geographic areas, store sizes, merchandise categories and price ranges. They also reflect a variety of tastes — for some, blue is definitely out while others are selling it in every shade; some re...Read More

Art Van Furniture is teaming up with “Days of Our Lives” cast members and local (Michigan) NBC affiliate WDIV to help the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries- Genesis House III. Truckloads of furniture including 50 mattress sets, bed frames, night stands and dressers will arrive next week at the Genesis House III compliments of Art Van Furniture. 

To celebrate this campaign and draw attention to the cause, cast members Shawn Christian (“Dr. Daniel Jonas”) and Nadia Bjorlin (“Chloe Lane”) will make appearances at four Art Van Furniture stores for autographs and photos on Jan. 16 (noon to 1pm at the Warren store and 3-4 pm at the Taylor store) and Jan. 17 (noon to 1pm at the Lakeside store and 3-4 pm at the Novi store).  Directions and details can be found at www.artvan.com.   

HEMPHILL'S RUGS & CARPETS has been providing rugs, carpeting and flooring to the waterfront homes, hilltop haciendas and gated communities of Orange County, Calif., since 1995.

Owner and California native Brett Hemphill started the business following several years of rug retailing on the East Coast, preceded by his graduation from college and earlier years spent working in the family's retail shoe business. "I had just graduated from USC (1988) with a degree in business when I got a job offer from my brother's fraternity advisor, Joe Steele, to start and run a spin-of...Read More

Retailers are basking in the (admittedly soft) afterglow of a December that resulted in better sales for most -- somewhere between 1.5% to 2.5% for the chains and closer to 5% for the independents -- in line with our findings among AmericasMart buyers this week. 

Independent retailer Mary Liz Curtin, the self professed “Wicked Queen” of metro Detroit’s Leon & Lulu, stopped by the press room yesterday and shared that her December furniture and gifts sales were up 40% over the same period last year, and she was up 10% for the year. “The gifts and smaller items seemed to aid the furniture sell-through … they came in for smaller things and were tempted by the furniture,” she said.

The retail same-store composite sales report released yesterday by the National Retail Federation further supports the numbers...Read More