Discounters are continuing to adopt new merchandising approaches to take better advantage of the ongoing boom in lifestyle furniture sales.
The same type of employe benefits, paid for entirely by the corporation, go to every employe, from corporate officers to truck drivers."I am not a pessimist,' he says. "I think there is hope.'That's as far as Gold Circle goes too in cross-merchandising furniture with related items. "Our furniture fixtures wouldn't do justice to electronics. Only 5% of our customers own computers. And when carts and ovens are on sale, we try to display them on adjacent endcaps," said lifestyle furniture and wicker buyer Derek Dubin, who noted the chain's furniture ads are typically 20%-30% off everyday prices.On top of that, he cited technological improvements in the machinery used by kd manufacturers, and the surge of home offices and electronic entertainment areas in homes. "Any single trend would prompt growth," Dubin said, "but now there's an explosion."Titling it Our Democracy's Game-- A Fiscal Time Bomb, Howell paid for its publication and sent copies to hundreds of chief executive officers. Himself the chairman and CEO of Howell Corporation, a tightly run oil and gas exploration and production firm, author Howell chastizes the business community for priding itself on "profit inclinations' while being "heedless of history.' He urges formation of "a leadership cadre to assure the nation's future fiscal soundness.'No one expects such advertising efforts to make promotional furniture business grow at the expense of everyday sales. Chain buyers agreed both are growing evenly. Margins are 40%-plus daily and in the mid-20's on advertised merchandise.He is as tall and lean as a basketball player, even at age 67. But his formal manner dispels any thought of talking sports or repeating the latest office joke. To make an impression, the visitor might better show some concern over debt.Nevertheless, he is so concerned about the future, particularly America's, that last year he wrote a book urging fellow business leaders to use their influence to help save the nation from fiscal collapse.A WinnerPaul Howell runs a tight ship where employes, as well as dollars, are concerned. "We are demanding of our people --we expect performance,' he says.K mart, for its part, will roll out later this year its first continuous imported furniture program, said senior buyer Bill Cashman. After testing imported traffic goods from Taiwan such as end tables, magazine racks, plant tables and microwave carts for six months in 100 stores, K mart plans to display them near high traffic seasonal areas to augment wall units, the category mainstay.Howell Hydrocarbons "makes some 100 different products such as low tolerance fuels, auto racing gasolines and special blends,' Howell says. The subsidiary, for example, provides the reference fuel for the Environmental Protection Agency's standards for auto efficiency and emission characteristics.Besides microwave carts at $40 to $100, buyerx cited their current popular items as Italian stackable chairs with metal frames, padded seats and backs at about $9 on sale, and secretary chairs at $30-$35 every day and $20 on ad. Falling prices on secretary chairs from Italy, after their starburst introduction this past Christmas, are prompting buyers to add tradeup chairs for the back to school season.Because managers and directors also own stock, Howell says, "the management thinks like stockholders, too. Therefore, our financial success as managers is directly tied to the success of the company. There are no "golden parachutes.''In addition, Howell encourages all employes to buy stock in the company, "because we want our employes to think like stockholders.' For every 75 cents the employe puts up, the company puts up 25 cents."We are a bankrupt nation, not physically, but in our willingness to be realistic about fiscal restraints,' he says. "We are daily digging a financial hole, and nobody knows how we are going to come out of it.'Furniture will take over space freed up by the chain's elimination of white goods. The displays will front the race track and extend to a perimeter wall between housewaves and consumer electronics, where microwave carts and entertainment centers are already cross-merchandised, he said."I have never wanted to be a big company,' Howell says. "The bigger you are, the harder it is to get in a hands-on mode. I'm interested in what it costs to operate a truck, what the specific problem is in the lab.'"I was chairman of both, and we felt we had to clarify the situation. So last year Howell Corporation purchased all outstanding publicly held stock of the petroleum corporation, and it came off the board, leaving only Howell Corporation.'Both the parent corporation and the petroleum firm were listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and "that created some confusion,' says Howell."As a chemical engineering graduate [Louisiana State University, Class of '41], I really wanted my own refinery,' he says. Two years later he found one, in San Antonio, and sold his trucking business to buy it by making a small down payment and taking over the company's debts. It was the beginning of Howell Corporation, a firm that in 1984 recorded revenues of $140 million and net earnings of $3.7 million.Eying better than 25% same-store sales growth in the category this year, buyers are shifting assortments more toward entertainment centers; television, stereo and microwave oven carts, and home office groupings including computer desks and hutches, lamps, framed prints and secretary chairs from Italy.Keeping Pace
Besides microwave carts at $40 to $100, buyerx cited their current popular items as Italian stackable chairs with metal frames, padded seats and backs at about $9 on sale, and secretary chairs at $30-$35 every day and $20 on ad. Falling prices on secretary chairs from Italy, after their starburst introduction this past Christmas, are prompting buyers to add tradeup chairs for the back to school season.
