You know the expression "Go Big…or Go Home?" Well, for Nordstrom, it's more like "Go Home…and Go Big." As the upscale department store faces the severest challenge in its history, ramping up its home furnishings department and offering a full-blown assortment of housewares, textiles and home décor could generate as much as $500 million in additional sales every year. No other initiative it might be considering has the potential to be as impactful as does doubling down in home. With traffic in its prime shopping center locations severely …
The Quest to Nest
The home furnishings industry finds itself in the ultimate Venn Diagram (a graphic representation of circles that shows the sweet spot where different datasets overlap): the confluence of Americans spending much more time at home, much less time traveling and going out to restaurants, theaters and events -- and all of us having a general feeling that where you live should be the nicest, most comforting place on the planet. It is Home Sweet Home to the max. While certain sectors of the American economy like airlines and restaurants are in …
Five Big Ways BBB Is Working Its Way Back
There was a reason Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the most -- if not the most -- shorted stock on Wall Street for the past couple of years. The Big Box home furnishings retailer was in a free fall, its revenues, profits, comp-store sales and virtually every other matrix falling precipitously…at the same time its overhead costs and SG&A were going in the opposite direction. What was once viewed as the best in class retailer in the home space had fallen on hard times and after an investor revolt resulted in the exit of its senior …
How Sustainability Went from Just Slogan to Reality in Home Furnishings Retailing
If you mentioned the word "sustainability" to anybody in the home furnishings business a few years back -- hell, maybe even a few months back -- chances are you'd get a smirk, an "oh-yeah-that's-important" condescending response and a suggestion that it was time to go to Starbucks. My, how things have changed. Profits + the Planet As the entire consumer products industry from factories and marketers to retailers comes to grips with the issue of environmental dangers lurking in the very near-term future, the home furnishings industry is …
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Home Depot & Lowe’s: A Tale of Two Retailers…Two Really Good Retailers
In an age of luxury merchandising and technology-fueled e-commerce selling, who would have ever thought that two of the most successful and admired retailers in the business make their money selling 2x4s, plumbing fixtures and gardening tools? Home Depot and Lowe's are weathering the pandemic as well as any two companies in the country, building on the wave of success they've been riding for the past several years. Happily, situated in a very sweet spot in the marketplace right now -- the home improvement and remodeling sector -- they are also …
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Livestreaming: It’s Big in China, Is the US Next?
The future of livestreaming depends not just on who you are, but also where you are…and whether you understand exactly what livestreaming actually is. Livestreaming is a term being thrown around the retail world with increased frequency these days -- but describing it is not easy. Start with a TV shopping show like you might find on QVC or HSN. But put it on your mobile phone rather than your television. Then layer on social media functions, the ability to interact with what's on your screen in a way that's impossible on one-way electronics …
Chip & Joanna Gaines Build Out Magnolia
Not too long ago if you were to tell anybody that the center of the American home furnishings design world was in Waco, Texas they might have looked at you like you were…well, wacko. But despite the allure of New York, the magic of Los Angeles and the appeal of Miami or San Francisco, it's this little town in the flats of central Texas, halfway between Dallas and Houston, that has become the design mecca for shoppers. And it's only about to get more so. Waco is the home of Chip and Joanne Gaines' Magnolia Home empire that encompasses …
At Home Finds Itself the Right Store at the Right Time
If you're looking for a story about yet another retailer devastated by the Covid pandemic, barely surviving and on the brink of insolvency…this isn't it. But if you want something positive, about how a retailer, seemingly written off before the pandemic, has risen to the occasion and gotten back on its game with its prospects looking up for the future, welcome to the story of At Home. As recently as this past April the home furnishings Big Box store, with about 220 locations around the country -- all of them closed -- was on many people's …
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