Discounters dominate Orange County RTA sales - ready-to-assemble furniture

Discount Store News, August 20, 1990 by Mary Ellen Kelly

Discounters Dominate Orange Cty. RTA Sales

ORANGE COUNTY, N.Y. - Discount department stores are the hub of retailing in this region north of metro New York where Sears and JCPenney are the only furniture retailers competing with discounters and catalogers.

The allure of low-priced ready-to-assemble furniture to this largely blue collar or retired population, draws consumers to the discount chains for home furnishings.

Located 70 miles northwest of metro New York, one does not yet find the large enclosed mall packed with upscale specialty shops common to much of suburbia. Projections supplied by the county chamber of commerce indicate that the market will outpace New York state and the entire United States average in terms of percentage growth of population, household and retail sales.

With the exception of the affluent Tuxedo Park area (home of Sterling Forest and the Renaissance Fair) per capita income in any of the Orange County towns was under $15,000 in 1987, based on U.S. Census bureau and the local Times Herald-Record figures.

Retailing in the county is centered in a handful of big towns such as Middletown and Newburgh, N.Y. Without the discounters in these towns, furniture stores are essentially non-existent.

Ames, Bradlees, Caldor, Jamesway, Lloyd's, Playtogs, K mart, McCrory, Wool-worth, Service Merchandise and Consumers Distributing all operate in Orange County. Jamesway had three stores in the county until April when one of the locations burned to the ground in the town of Monroe. The chains with the greatest presence in the market are now Caldor and a local hypermarket hybrid called Lloyd's Shopping Center, each with three units.

Jamesway's furniture department gives consumers the largest selection of RTA furniture in the market, and frequently at the lowest prices, as indicated by a review of competing stores in the market. The items listed on the price comparison chart represent only a smattering of the furniture department.

Unlike most of the chains, Jamesway does not dedicate its assortment to one or two vendors. The discounter frequently skirts the pricing fray by offering Armstrong, Fournier, O'Sullivan and Charleswood furniture, brands not as universally available in other Orange County stores.

The next broadest RTA assortments were found at Caldor and at Playtogs, a 250,000-square-foot, warehouse-styled outlet based in Middletown. Playtogs' assortment is almost exclusively Sauder (as it is at Bradlees.) While Sauder furniture was available at virtually every store (with the exception of K mart), most other chains offered other brands as well.

Playtogs is a single-unit retailer. The core of the store is apparel; RTA and other hard lines are against the walls, lining the perimeter of the store. The Caldor store in Middle-town is in the process of being retrofitted to the chain's new prototype. Furniture is now on new metal racking, allowing more sku's to be merchandised within the same area. Lloyd's is the oldest discount store operator in the county, having opened its first location in 1935. Furniture at Lloyd's is merchandised next to CE and consists primarily of audio/video RTA pieces.

Furniture, unlike many Lloyd's departments, is not leased. The three-unit chain leases its apparel departments plus paint, toys, stationery, jewelry and juvenile furniture. All other general merchandise categories are company owned as are the instore bakeries, restaurant, pharmacy and separate lawn and garden center.

K mart, located in the town of Monroe, is one of the chain's smallest stores (40,000 square feet) and has little furniture. A handful of utility carts from Gusdorf were tucked into the CE department.

The Ames store, showing the affects of its financial woes, was out of stock on a wide range of goods. While women's apparel was especially hard hit, furniture stock was slim too. The RTA items in stock were often beat by direct price competition on an identical or similar item at another discounter.