Is Stanley Furniture Continuing to Sell Furniture
HIGH POINT — Retailers loyal to the Stanley brand say they are hopeful to see the company become stronger and more resilient after facing many challenges in recent months, including flowing goods during a period of major supply chain disruptions during the pandemic.
These challenges resulted in a recent corporate decision to temporarily suspend domestic operations in High Point, which include its administrative offices and showroom at 200 North Hamilton St. downtown. The furlough affects an unknown number of employees in various sales, marketing and administrative efforts, as well as executive level positions. See related story: Stanley owner responds on temporary suspension
Retailers contacted by Furniture Today said that they received a text message about the furlough from the company last week, just before Easter weekend. While they were disappointed to hear the news and hoped the business would reopen before long, they were not overly optimistic.
Jeff Harris
"They just have said, 'We are doing this because we have to right now, and we hope it is not forever,'" said Jeff Harris, president and CEO of Jamestown, N.C.-based Top 100 company Furnitureland South. "To me that doesn't sound very promising."
Harris said that Furnitureland South has carried the Stanley brand as long as he can remember.
"It was one of the brands in our store from the very beginning," he said. "Anytime something happens like this you are upset by it, but this is a sign of the times."
He said that, for years, the brand once occupied a larger space on the floor. But a year and a half ago it got moved to a much smaller area in the store with brands representing starting price points.
Harris noted that among the key challenges has been the company's ability to supply goods on a consistent basis. Thus, the retailer has let its business with Stanley dwindle to a couple of containers of product that it is putting in its outlet center.
"It is a tragedy what has happened with that brand, but it is a sign of other things that have happened with our industry on the manufacturing side," Harris said, noting that while Stanley hasn't said it is shutting down completely, the ability to supply goods more consistently will ultimately decide its fate.
Jerry Baer
Jerry Baer, CEO of Top 100 company Baer's Furniture, based in Pompano Beach, Fla., said the company still receives a minimal amount of product from Stanley but nothing like the level it had in years past.
"We feel very badly for what has happened at Stanley, and we hope they can turn things around," Baer said. "Having been their largest dealer in the past, we wish them well."
Others said they have stopped ordering the line based on challenges they had receiving goods.
Mike Forwood
"I haven't bought Stanley in two years," said Mike Forwood, president of Austin, Texas-based Louis Shanks Furniture. "They were having trouble getting goods out of their factory."
He said this highlights a trend in which it is increasingly difficult to find more upscale bedroom produced by Stanley, as well as others that already have fallen by the wayside such as Henredon, Drexel Heritage and Fine Furniture Design.
"It is a shame," he said. "It is hard to go out and buy nice bedroom furniture."
Forwood said he will keep an eye on the situation to see what happens with the company before deciding to write the line off completely. Still he wasn't overly optimistic.
"I would be very surprised if that was temporary," he said, of the recent suspension of Stanley's U.S. operations.
Chris Pfeiffer
Chris Pfeiffer, managing partner at Conroe, Texas- based Homestead House, said in the past the company would floor as many as five Stanley collections, and those collections did very well.
However, he also noted that his store ordered new product from two years ago that still hasn't shipped.
"It has been awhile," he said. "It was really good looking stuff and really nice. They just could never get their act together."
Sensing that Stanley was going to have trouble shipping before it actually became a problem, he said, the store bulked up on additional inventory in the past, including product from 10 years ago that still sold well.
"We stayed with the old groups and even up until recently were showing older collections," Pfeiffer said. "That was what sold, what they kept in their line."
While keeping the company at arms' length of late, he is hopeful the line can reemerge given the void of product —including bedroom —left by upper end resources companies that have disappeared in the marketplace.
While he declined to say exactly how long the furlough in the U.S. might last, Stanley owner Walter Blocker told Furniture Today that the company is working towards achieving better service, including more consistent shipping for its many loyal retail customers.
"Although our product is really fantastic in terms of quality, price and design, the entire company right now is focused on one thing and that is service," he said. "And service means making furniture more efficiently, at the right price point and delivering it on time. I have all the resources of the company focusing on that."
I'm Tom Russell and have worked at Furniture/Today since August 2003. Since then, I have covered the international side of the business from a logistics and sourcing standpoint. Since then, I also have visited several furniture trade shows and manufacturing plants in Asia, which has helped me gain perspective about the industry in that part of the world. As I continue covering the import side of the business, I look forward to building on that knowledge base through conversations with industry officials and future overseas plant tours. From time to time, I will file news and other industry perspectives online and, as always, welcome your response to these Web postings.
Source: https://www.furnituretoday.com/industry-issue/retailers-react-to-stanleys-temporary-disruption/
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