Everything's coming up Rose's in RTA - ready-to-assemble furniture at Rose's Stores - HomeMarket Trends supplement

Discount Store News, Oct 10, 1988 by Michael Harnett

Everything's Coming Up Rose's in RTA By doubling the display space and sku count, Rose's RTA buyer Ed Saleeba has nurtured a strong consumer following for the discounter's lifestyle merchandise.

Pursuing a new strategy for ready-to-assemble furniture that was formulated five years ago, Rose's has compiled one of the most successful furniture programs in the discount industry.

The chain's program isn't the largest, nor the most sophisticated but under the direction of buyer Ed Saleeba, RTA has become an important part of company's sales and earnings strategy. The category continues to prove every year that the company's additional investment in more display space and a broader assortment is justified.

Since taking over the program in 1983, Saleeba has been able to present RTA in twice the display space, and he has more than doubled the number of sku's carried by the Henderson, N.C.-based chain. He continues to use the same criteria in fine-tuning the RTA mix as he did when the program was new.

Saleeba is sensitive to factors like price points, product quality, selection, styling and function, but says the perception of value, which encompasses all those elements, is most important to his customers.

"We have continued to represent a value to the customer," said Saleeba, in a recent interview with HomeMarket Trends, "not necessarily the lowest price point, nor the highest, but we have always presented RTA furniture that is a value."

Saleeba began refining his definition of what constitutes a value while he was still a Rose's store manager. He often heard the comments shoppers made when considering a furniture purchase.

"I didn't hear them talking about darker or lighter woods, or what styling they might prefer. They talked about what functions they would like to see a piece of furniture fulfill. Long-term, I saw the future of the furniture department as one that would encourage customers to consider a discount store like Rose's as an alternative to the conventional furniture store. You can't accomplish that just with pricing. You have to provide the customers with what they need."

He translates "function" to mean features. In entertainment centers, for example, early designs included shelves for a record player, speakers and perhaps another amplifier or cassette deck. But today's models have space for every possible component, as well as a TV and behind-the-door storage for records and tapes.

"The furniture has become more consumer oriented and price, therefore, is no longer the sole prerequisite for carrying a piece of furniture. Today, questions of how well a piece meets the needs of the consumer and how well it blends into the customer's lifestyle are equally as important as price," said Saleeba.

In reviewing all the changes he has made in the RTA program, he lists several key elements that have contributed to its success.

"We have expanded the department and that increase in the number of square feet has been critical. Presentation is another key variable. Advertising is certainly important both to promote price points as well as the image of the store. And the upgrading of the mix, presenting a more value-related furniture assortment to the consumer has ` also been critical.'

"Furniture is a sensitive purchase. Consumers don't want to take a piece of RTA home and tell their guests they got it cheap," said Saleeba.

Based on the success he has enjoyed with Rose's RTA program, Saleeba is convinced of the need to educate the public about the products. He said American consumers have been trained for the last 200 years to buy their furniture at a traditional furniture store, which may account for the fact only 10 percent of all U.S. consumers have bought RTA while Europeans use more RTA to furnish their homes than anything else.

He applauds the efforts of Sweden-based home furnishings retailer IKEA, which has been sensitive to questions from U.S. consumers about RTA, despite the retailer's remarkable success in Europe. Using extensive in-store signage and several pages in its catalog, IKEA has tried to explain what RTA is and why it can represent a value.

Rose's has followed a similar strategy, but a different approach. Although the chain through Saleeba, moved aggressively to expand and improve its RTA program, changes were made gradually to avoid too many surprises for the shopper.

"We didn't just throw out a brand new program with a lot of new and exciting items with merchandise that was totally foreign to the way people though about Rose's," Saleeba explained. For example, larger pieces of furniture priced close to $200 were introduced gradually, giving customers a chance to get accustomed to the idea that a familiar discount chain was now in the furniture business.

Despite double-digit increases every year in RTA sales industrywide, Saleeba recognizes that many consumers will not make an RTA purchase because they still consider it an unacceptable substitute for traditional furniture. "They will say it is still cheap stuff even if it looks good. They can't believe it is that good," he says.