COON RAPIDS, Minn. --To some furniture retailers, rugs might seem like an afterthought category, an obligatory offering simply to round out their home furnishings selections. But for HOM Furniture, rugs are a vibrant and important part of the company's product mix, and integral to its goal of becoming Minnesota's largest flooring retailer - in both soft and hard surfaces.
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"Our goal is to be the number one flooring retailer in Minnesota by 2020." -- Kyle Johansen, HOM Furniture |
"We believe rugs add to the total assortment of product for a furniture retailer," says Kyle Johansen, executive director of merchandising for HOM Furniture. Johansen estimates that area rugs comprise about three percent of the company's sales. "Rugs are the jewelry of the room. Everyone has a brown leather sofa or a grey fabric sofa these days, and those are pretty boring without a great rug."
The company's rug selection spans styles and price categories, from 5x8 machine-made rugs starting at $79, to 12x15 hand-knotted rugs with price tags that exceed $15,000. Johansen estimates that HOM's in-line core assortment of stocking rugs is around 2,000 SKUs: roughly 225 to 250 patterns in 15 different sizes.
With its HOM World Rugs galleries, the furniture retailer offers a broad selection of styles and price points.
In addition, the company carries around 5,000 one-of-a-kind hand-knotted pieces, which are showcased throughout the HOM showrooms. "We have a higher concentration of hand-knotteds at the Plymouth Superstore and at the five locations with a Gabberts showroom," Johansen explains. Indeed, the HOM World Rugs Superstore in Plymouth, Minn. displays more than double the rugs of any of the other HOM locations. Its flooring selection is about 50 percent larger as well.
Rugs are integrated with furniture in vignettes at HOM Furniture's Little Canada store. Here, wood floors offset dining room settings accessorized with area rugs.
HOM locations, of which there are 15, all in Minnesota and neighboring states, have full-sized rug galleries inside the stores, displaying rugs up to 9x12 on racks. Rugs are also integrated with the furniture in vignettes throughout the showrooms. Services and amenities include free design services, free shipping, a generous return policy, and a large in-stock selection for those who want to take a rug home with them that very day.
DEDICATED RUG SPECIALISTS
Johansen says one thing that sets HOM's rug department apart from those of other furniture retailers is its sales staff. "We have dedicated rug specialists that are there to assist our clients," he says. "These specialists are true experts in all things about rugs, whether it's selecting the perfect rug for a room, or knowledge about how the rug was made and constructed."
This level of service and expertise is important, as Johansen believes that rugs can be a challenging product to sell. "Unless you have dedicated rug specialists or designers, it's a battle to get regular sales staff to talk about rugs and sell them consistently," he says.
TOP-SELLING LOCATION
Rugs are particularly germane to the company's newest location in Little Canada, Minn. There, HOM and its two sister brands, Gabberts and Dock 86, share a 150,000-square-foot showroom that showcases all three distinctive brands under the HOM corporate umbrella. The rug department, says Johansen, is a cross-section of all three brands in the store. "Customers are able to shop one large, complete rug gallery with all products, price points, and styles," he notes.
At HOM Furniture's Little Canada store, customers can experience the upscale Gabberts displays and also shop HOM, and Dock 86 for a cross section of rugs and flooring.
As anticipated, the Little Canada store is the company's top-selling location. "We feel the advantage is that the customer can get a full shopping experience between three distinctively different brands of furniture," says Johansen.
THREE BRANDS ACROSS PRICE POINTS
And distinctive they are: Gabberts caters to a high-end clientele, with ASID-certified designer services in-store and in-home, and luxury brands. HOM represents a promotional to mid-high-end product line, with knowledgeable sales associates, in-home design services, and well-priced, in-stock offerings. And Dock 86 is marketplace-style shopping for showroom samples, overstocks, closeouts and other value-priced opportunities.
Area rugs are prominently signaled at Dock 86, the bargain hunter's paradise at HOM's Little Canada location.
Retail store designer Connie Post, who designed the Little Canada location, told RugNews.com of the rug department, "The rug department serves all three formats [which] means they have to cover all the price points, from the bargain hunters and budget-minded all the way up to the luxury customer who shops Gabberts. It's a great presentation because it allows the customer to step up and down within the category."
COMPLETE FLOORING SOURCE
Rugs are not the only floor coverings that HOM carries. Both HOM and Gabberts offer broadloom carpeting, and several years ago, the retailer expanded into hard-surface, including hardwood, tile, vinyl and laminate.
Johansen describes getting into the flooring world as an "eye-opening" experience, since the products are so different from furniture or even rugs. "However, it's been growing exponentially for us and still is a growing segment of our business. This is and continues to be a long-term strategy to grow our business and consumer base at HOM and Gabberts," he says.
"Our goal is to be the number-one flooring retailer in Minnesota by 2020, and to have expanded [hard surface and broadloom] to all of our other marketplaces." Currently hard surface flooring is only sold in the company's seven Minneapolis/St. Paul metro locations.