Flagship recasts Service Merchandise - Service Merchandise Company Inc.'s Nashville, Tennessee flagship store

Discount Store News, Oct 19, 1992 by Jill Lettich

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- "Service is the message at the new flagship store opened here by the nation's largest catalog showroom chain.

"We're not a catalog showroom, we're a store with a catalog'" explained Ray Zimmerman, chairman of Service Merchandise, the $3.4 billion leader of a vanishing retail segment.

This re-emphasizing of the chain as what more accurately can be viewed as a hard lines specialty discounter is evident at the new flagship unit, which opened across the street from the corporate headquarters here Oct. 1. The new store will be a test site for a number of new design elements and service programs for Service Merchandise customers.

The new flagship unit features a shopper-friendly store layout and more self-service products on the display floor. "There is less under glass in this store; more is out in the open," said Greg Winnett, assistant vice president, community relations.

The store features Service's standard racetrack design and relies on jewelry to be the focal point of the floor, but display walls have been lowered so that the entire stoer is more visible. Space has been increased to 60,000 sq.ft., about 10,000 sq. ft. larger than an average store. Jewelry, sporting goods, toys and stationery (primarily self-service products, except for jewelry) were the big beneficiaries of the increased space.

In addition to the physical enhancements, various service extras are being tried out in this new store. A shopper, can Nashville unit, for instance, can make travel reservations at the store's travel agency for a relative's wedding an also buy her a present through the gift registry program.

According to Zimmerman, some of the test programs are much readily suited to a rollout. Jewelry repair, for instance, is already in use in 60% of Service Merchadise units. The gift registry and the shipping and wrapping department are also good rollout bets. However, the in-store travel agency will have to go through further scrunity. "We just moved our corporate travel staff across the street. We have a new luggage area in the store and thought this would be a good complement," said Zimmerman.

Overall, Zimmerman said that the various new concepts would be "rolled out carefully." The company is planning to go ahead with larger store sizes, however, and most new units will be between 50,000 sq. ft. and 60,000 sq. ft., he said.

The flagship unit itself features other merchandise and service highlights:

* A new jewelry area called Pizazz has been added to complement its fine jewelry mix. This area sells primarily costume and reproduction jewelry ranging in price from $20 to $5,000. In the week before the grand opening, the store was doing especially good sales with a "Menu" of costume jewelry in the shapes of pigs, hot dogs and other goodies. * A dedicated person has been hired to serve as a gift consultant. Service Merchandise has been successful with its gift registry program in other stores and has designated space in the new unit where customers can speak to a store employee. "Our stores in the Detroit area do especially well with the gift registry program, so they will probably be among the roughly 72 stores that will feature a gift registry area," Winnett said. * Wrapping and shipping services are being offered to customers. "This is something our customers have been telling us they wanted for a long time," said Zimmerman. According to Winnett, a wrapping desk was tested years ago, but proved unsuccessful. This time, the paper selection was limited to about four different patterns, an easier format for stores to manage. The wrapping and shipping service complements the gift registry. * Sporting goods services have been added. Shoppers can have holes drilled in their bowling ball and their tennis rackets re-strung at the new store. Hunters and fishermen can apply for hunting and fishing licenses. According to Winnett, sporting goods was one area that benefitted from increased floor space in the new store. * Silent Sam, its electronic in-store ordering system, now allows customers not only to order merchandise, but to pull through their credit cards by themselves. There are six computers throughout the store. According to Winnett, the credit card application to Silent Sam has been tested in a handful of other Service Merchandise units. New in this flagship is a service button located next to the computers. When pressed, a prerecorded voice calls an employee to the area. * A dedicated product demonstration area has been made part of the housewares department. "This is something I've pushed for since I got here in 1980," Winnett noted.

Zimmerman said that Service has weathered the recessionary storms well.

"I thought that people would be trading way down, but we're hold our own," he said. Zimmerman said the company learned its lessons in the early '80s. "We began bringing in different merchandise at lower prices, but we found it took us a while to get back our original customer. We do well when we tend to our own knitting."