Top 100 retailer Bob’s Discount Furniture held a grand opening for its Somerville, Mass. flagship on Nov. 8. Photo courtesy of Bob’s Discount Furniture.
MANCHESTER, Conn. — Top 100 retailer Bob’s Discount Furniture’s new flagship store in Somerville, Mass., is redefining the brand.
The Manchester, Conn.-based retailer held a grand opening for the 38,012-square-foot store on Nov. 8 with a brand-new Bob’s experience. So, what makes it different?
“The Somerville location looks like no other Bob’s that consumers have seen before,” Ramesh Murthy, executive vice president of operations, told Furniture Today. “The new store design features include inspirational room vignettes, a home decor marketplace filled with seasonal decor and accents, an enhanced sleep center, a motion section that demonstrates how motion furniture impacts not only comfort but your health and wellness and a plussed-up version of Bob’s complementary café with free goodies and refreshments.
“The location also features new brand elements such as a selfie station with Bob’s iconic spokes-puppet Little Bob and a newly launched plushies-for-charity program.”
Murthy said Bob’s had been considering the addition of a flagship experience/store to its fleet for the better part of a year and started working on the concept earlier this year. Chris Day, senior vice president of real estate, said it made sense to place the flagship store in the greater Boston market.
“Bob’s Somerville store is located in Assembly Row, which is a vibrant area filled with retail, dining, residential options and more. It’s also a great location along ‘The T,’ Boston’s train line,” Day said. “In general, the Boston market is a stronghold for Bob’s, so this was a great opportunity to surprise and delight a legacy Bob’s market with something new and exciting.”
During the grand opening, Bob’s donated $46,000 to the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals from Bob’s Café Collections for a Cause program, – funded by the donations of guests and a dollar-for-dollar match from Bob’s. Boston Children’s Hospital, a CMN member hospital, accepted the donation. Bob’s also presented $2,500 checks to the Greater Somerville Homeless Coalition and East Somerville Community.
Chief Brand Officer Stephen Nesle said the Somerville store represents an evolution of how Bob’s tells its story.
“The heart of the brand is in our fundamental belief that ‘Everyone deserves a home they love.’ It is with that mindset that we created an elevated brand experience while maintaining our outstanding values,” Nesle said. “As we continue to grow, we are excited to add new categories like our new home décor department and merchandise our products in new ways like our room vignettes that help our customers see how the furniture might look in their home. Continuing to evolve our brand experience is the key to our purpose of delivering value without compromise.”
And while furniture is the centerpiece — it is a furniture store, after all — having the extra touchpoints such as the cafés, selfie stations and the Little Bob plushies add to the experiential nature of the store. Nesle said that’s part of creating the best possible experience for customers in-store and online.
“With a high-ticket, considered purchase like furniture, it is very important to have an outstanding omnichannel experience that starts with our online presence and continues into the guest experience in the stores,” Nesle said. “Our guests have come to expect that we deliver on all the key elements: outstanding value, great style and quality and a store experience that is second-to-none. We continue to get very high marks from our guests on our store experience and will continue raise the bar.”
Could the new look show itself elsewhere? Bet on this and more, Murthy said.
“We believe that there are opportunities for additional flagship stores in our overall fleet,” Murthy said. “More importantly, we see each of these stores as a laboratory that allows us to test new and exciting consumer experiences. As we see the success of these elements, we will roll them out to our chain.”
See also:
: