Furniture sales people are often times told by customers that they are "searching for a good deal”. Here is a translation: “We are on a mission to find the cheapest couch in the store no matter who makes it, how well it will hold up over time, or how comfortable it is, but it has to look like it costs a lot.”
People are now sitting in hollowed-out , sunken-in holes with springs protruding through foam and cotton. We all need to be able to have our own place on the sofa without worrying that it will look like a meteor hit it after a short time. Sometimes we just want a good deal, but our money could be raised just a tiny bit to gain us much higher quality.
Let’s just say a wonderful deal is not always so wonderful!
Unfortunately, due to a still hurting economy, this is the case for many consumers looking to purchase as of late. .
Several high-end furniture stores have taken a hit due to this economic trend, and have to close their doors, which leads them to hire companies such as
Planned Furniture Promotions to run promotional sales for them.
Here is what Wallace E. Epperson, a longtime furniture-industry analyst with Richmond-based Mann, Armistead & Epperson Ltd., had to say in regards to Leo Burke Furniture having to close their doors in 2012.
“I hate to see it, but we have seen a lot of our premier furniture stores close up nationally,” said Wallace E. Epperson Jr., a longtime furniture-industry analyst with Richmond-based Mann, Armistead & Epperson Ltd.
Jack Burke of Leo Burke Furniture assisting a consumer in the store
High-end furniture retailers have suffered in recent years as manufacturers have closed or greatly reduced their offerings, Epperson said.
Most industry analysts would not have expected high-end furniture retailers and manufacturers to be hard hit during the recession, Epperson said, because their core customers — more affluent shoppers — are spending money and are not credit risky.
But those shoppers also are buying better-looking yet cheaper-priced imports that have flooded the market, he said.
“The imports look so good. If you want a leather sofa you can buy one for $2,000 that looks like a $6,000 one,” Epperson said. “As a consumer, it is just difficult to pay that kind of multiple price. As a retailer, how do you compete with that?”
Leo Burke Furniture hired
Planned Furniture Promotions to run their promotional sale in 2012, and wound up having incredible success leaving his outstanding business behind. When furniture companies start seeing a major loss in profits, the wisest decision they can make is to look to companies such as PFP to handle the dirty work for them. Closing a business can be emotionally taxing as it is, especially if it is a deep rooted store with a loyal customer base. It is quite a service this company does for struggling business owners.
Here is Jack Burke’s testimonial regarding the use of Planned Furniture Promotions:
This is Jack Burke, with Leo Burke Furniture in Richmond, VA. We’ve got a high end furniture store that we’ve had since 1958. We recently concluded a going out of business sale that we partnered up with PFP on, and it was a wonderful experience. We had used other companies in the past for high impact sales, and upon further review it became increasingly clear that we made the right decision using PFP.
We had gotten to this point by certainly analyzing the ugh………..it was no mystery………it was a down cycle………..but we were also looking at trends as we were moving forward here in this industry, and decided that going forward with the business was probably not the best thing to do. We did our due diligence, and talked to several companies that handle these kind of sales, and after speaking with them, decided that PFP’s business plan was the certainly the best way to handle an event like this.
As we moved through the sale and at the conclusion of the sale, I feel like we definitely made the right choice. I would be delighted to speak with anybody that’s considering closing their furniture store, and giving them more details about our experience and why I think PFP has the best business plan.
I feel like PFP delivered on everything they promised. It was a wonderful experience. We can certainly look everybody in the eye in the community. They left the store broom cleaned just like they said they would. It was a professional operation from start to finish.
