Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 26, 1992 TAG: 9201280341
SECTION: ECONOMY PAGE: 13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
LOGANS FIND SUCCESS BY KNOWING THEIR CUSTOMERS
Furniture store sales have been down for several years, but don't tell the Logans of Salem.For the third year in a row, including 1991, family-owned Logan Furniture topped $1 million in sales - but the business is an exception among furniture retailers in Western Virginia.
The Logans - Bob and Shirley and their son, Rob - play to their strengths, they said.
"We know we're not for everybody," said Bob Logan.
"Not for everybody" means the store carries a selective inventory of medium to high-end lines and leaves the more popularly priced items for larger retailers.
An average sale at Logan totals around $1,000. That's enough for maybe one piece by Henkel-Harris, the 18th-century reproduction line that is Logan's top seller. A dining table with six chairs from the Winchester maker retails in the $4,000 to $6,000 range, for example.
Logan went into the furniture business 14 years ago with one full-time employee, himself, when he bought the Furniture Mart. The Mart then had annual sales of about $150,000.
Logan changed the store name, stressed service and built up a regional clientele.
While sales have increased, so has the amount of advertising the company does, said Rob Logan, who takes a special interest in that area of the business.
At one time, Logan Furniture's main promotion was to write former customers occasionally to alert them to a new design from Henkel-Harris or a pending price increase.
The company still writes customers, but it also advertises regularly to a wider audience. Its distinctive newspaper ad suggests a low-keyed, sophisticated approach, generally a photo of one item and limited descriptive copy. The ads never give the item's price.
The Logans said they want to stay current and just added a new stainless-steel-and-wood line by Charleston Forge, but they cling to their proven niche.
Other furniture retailers and manufacturers - whether staying in a successful niche or expanding to create one - are more and more concerned about finding the places where they can do the best business.
The past four years have been tough on the furniture business. Most sales are fed by customers' desires for something new, not by necessity.
So, when times get tough, when people are worried about their jobs, they delay nonessential purchases like furniture. That is the message Bernard Wampler, chief executive officer of Pulaski Furniture Corp., gave stockholders at that company's 1990 annual meeting.
In the 1991 annual report, Wampler calls 1991 the "most competitive year" Pulaski has faced for many of the same reasons that 1990 was so tough - increased job cuts by companies and general job insecurity.
Manufacturers are catching it from all sides, Wampler and his peers point out. Customers are making fewer big-ticket purchases and more and more retailers are becoming bad credit risks.
And the retailers who are cash-flush can call the shots, pressing manufacturers to lower prices so they can move goods and keep factories running.
Grand Piano & Furniture Co. is one of the retailers with some power over manufacturers, but executives at the privately owned Roanoke-based chain don't talk about it.
George Cartledge Jr., president of the 24-store Grand chain, will only say, "We pay our bills."
But even successful Grand has become apprehensive. Last year, the company opened Seat Yourself, a sofa, chair and accessory shop, next to its upscale Grand Interiors store in southwest Roanoke County.
The new shop, which offers custom fabric on popularly priced - $499 to $799 - sofas and comparably priced chairs, is an attempt to offset Grand's over-30 customer image and make certain the company has the diversity in merchandise to appeal to all ages, Cartledge said.
The executives do believe business will get better, however, and the improvement will come during this year. So do the industry experts who forecast for Furniture/Today, the furniture business's main trade publication.