FONTANA, Calif. – Although door swings are down for many retailers around the country, business is up at New Classic Furniture from the pre-COVID years. The company credits its success to its advertisement efforts with retailers and to its promotional price points.
“Fortunately for New Classic, 2023 has been a very good year in written business coming off the COVID years,” said Scott Hill, president of sales. “Our business for 2023 is up double digits, and we attribute that to making aggressive moves in pricing last year and understanding the consumers open to buy was going to be reduced due to the economy.
“We speak with and sell most of the largest retailers in the country and the majority of them are not bragging about business as door swings continue to be down, but I attribute our success this year to offering promotable goods, helping dealers advertise price points to get door swings and counting on their marketing and salespeople to do a good job of continuing to increase that average ticket.”
Still, the company has identified ways to improve.
“That being said, we must continue to make strides in our overseas flow of products making sure we always have our best sellers in stock at all times,” he said, “working with our partners overseas to help them reach their MOQs to help them maintain profitability and to ship quickly.
Like other suppliers as of late, Hill believes offering a store as many furniture categories as possible is desirable. New business is hard to come by, so suppliers are hoping to get more business and floor space from the same retailers.
“The other focus is speed to market domestically,” Hill continued. “With distribution points on both coasts and dealers not wanting to stock large amounts of inventory, we need to be that warehouse for them, and we need to be able to get goods to our customers quickly. Offering multiple categories allows it to be a team effort between the store and ourselves to make sure we are building large enough orders to ship quickly at rates that are acceptable.”