Value retailers do more with home decor - Home Decor Update

DSN Retailing Today, July 21, 2003 by Mike Duff

When it comes to home decorative segments, ranging from candles to lamps to accent pieces to picture frames, dollar stores have made strides to build assortment and give customers the opportunity to update the domestic environment. They remain committed to providing inexpensive consumables to lower-income families, but they have found ways to offer more attractive choices in home goods. In so doing, dollar stores provide the kinds of little luxuries that make a house more homey.

Meeting the core consumer's need for replenishment items remains key, but dollar stores are working to address the desire for a little fashion that all consumers exhibit in these style-besotted times. For example, said Cindy Mazza, Dollar General's dmm of household products, the chain's customers can refresh their bathrooms by adding decorative and other fashion towels and mats that Dollar General offers. With the range of product available today, dollar store customers can combine replenishment items with a limited number of discretionary purchases. For example, a shopper might purchase some functional pieces in fashionable styles and colors and combine them with candles to enliven a tired room. "They can buy accessory items, update a look and provide fashion at a reasonable price," said Mazza.

Outdoor patio decorations and other seasonal items are strong at Dollar General, as are picture frames and art, wall boarders, shelves and sconces, candles and accent furniture. Lamps are coming on strong as well.

For 99 Cents Only Stores, silk flowers, decorative linens, candles, mirrors and pictures frames all are doing well, in no small measure because the retailer continually updates the selection and style, said Eric Schiffer, president. The home decor category remains a small one for 99 Cents Only, but it's growing. Take candles, for instance. "Years ago, we had the religious candles. Then two or three years ago, we added decorative candles and aroma therapy, and we've really done well."

While value retailer shoppers in general are looking for ways to incrementally improve home environments for little expenditure, some are looking for a bargain on bigger-ticket items they want to purchase in a familiar environment. Big Lots successfully added furniture by giving its customers a way of buying big-ticket furnishings that was familiar and demonstrated a value. But that didn't lead to more home decor sales. Rather, it was the other way around. Furniture dovetailed off a growing business in other home furnishings categories, said John Johnson, gmm, Big Lots.

Today at Big Lots, candles is a segment that is reviving after a cyclical slump at the beginning of the decade, said Johnson, while lamps are gaining, along with accent furniture and shelving, ceramics and decorative glassware and open-stock floral. A major difference between furniture and decorative furnishings for Big Lots is that sofas are a destination, what goes along with them is an impulse and incremental buy.

"Frames and art, accent pieces are more impulse purchases, really something that catches the customer's attention," he said. "The customer likes styling, price and that makes it into an irresistible purchase."