Mass retailers redesign home decor with artsy bent - specifically tailored promotions to encompass range of home furnishings items

Discount Store News, Nov 18, 1996 by Dawn Wilensky

NATIONWIDE DSN REPORT - Finding fashionable art in wood and metal frames, verdigris and granite finishes on candleholders and Tiffany-style table lamps is not uncommon in discount stores anymore. Retailers have paid considerable attention to upgrading selections and romancing these popular decorative accessories.

Casual lifestyles have definitely played a key role in the recent movement by retailers to present a total home environment, which links related categories like home furnishings and housewares with ready-to-assemble furniture, framed prints and mirrors, clocks, lighting and eclectic knickknacks to complete the desired look.

Target combines these categories throughout its Greatland stores on endcaps, in-line displays and glass fixtures that mimic some Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn displays. Unique items are a significant part of the mix, with daisies, pansies and sunflowers painted on wicker baskets or merchandised in copper and wrought iron planters, as well as Americana and country looks splashed on platters, vases and birdhouses.

Kmart uses decorative accessories to accent its commitment to home decor. In the unique layout in its new Penn Station store in Manhattan, an upgraded framed art presentation by Decorel lines the back wall of its Kitchen Corner department and is accentuated with lifestyle photography that runs above the assortment. The chain also devoted an endcap to picture frames, with a sidekick full of small framed pictures. These categories also flank lamps and lampshades, as well as soft goods like tablecloths, bedding and window treatments.

In its more traditional planograms, Kmart plans to partner decorative accessories in the new high-frequency stores where home decor is one of the key adjacent departments to the traffic-building Pantry section. Housewares and soft home are also linked to the Pantry, and will be increasingly drawn together as coordinated color and pattern stories become more prevalent, according to Andy Giancamilli, senior vp, gmm for consumables and commodities.

Bradlees has a fashion focus with a significant portion of its planogram devoted to lifestyle categories that blend soft home with framed prints in traditional, fashion, whimsical and nostalgic designs, as well as a full complement of table lamps, boudoir lamps and solid brass and halogen floor lamps. In its Woodbridge, N.J., store, the chain has a significant presence in categories like candles, candleholders and potpourri that share floor space with silk arrangements, flower pots, watering cans and baskets in many different finishes and fabrications.

"The discount stores, especially Target, want to compete in nontraditional categories as they align themselves more with department stores. Now you can find everything from furniture to lamps to outdoor accessories in these stores," said Susan Scott, president of Primal Life, a manufacturer of decorative lighting.

Like many other manufacturers, Primal Life first targeted the specialty and gift stores for its line of string lights, night lights and switch plates, but has changed its focus to the mass market, with key licenses like Red Dog, Disney (the classic characters), Coca-Cola, Budweiser, the U.S. Post Office and the first-ever license for the Working Ranch Cowboy Association, a new organization based in Amarillo, Texas. A 3-D wall sconce made of parchment paper will also be available with the U.S. Post Office and Coca-Cola licenses and its own proprietary designs.

"The mass merchants never want to be the first kids on the block to test a product, and often will only stock a product only after it has a proven track record," said Scott.

This track record is often established first by specialty and gift stores. These chains are more open to experimenting with offbeat categories like decorative glass bottles, serving platters and bowls, gift baskets and foodstuffs that have all caught fire at many discount stores.

What also attracts retailers are proprietary products that in essence create an exclusive design for the chain. At Caldor, the chain stocks a line of wicker baskets, watering cans and tea lights made exclusively for the chain.

This practice is particularly prevalent for seasonal goods, a category that has grown in importance industrywide over the past five years. The Christmas industry, for example, recorded a wholesale U.S. dollar value of $14.5 billion in 1995, according to Epic Enterprises, a research firm that conducted a benchmark study for AmeriChristmas, an organization that holds a trade show by the same name. That number is projected to rise this year, but no firm figure has been released.

Discounters have become a viable channel for purchasing products for key holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and Easter. In fact, Target has established a good, better, best assortment for its seasonal merchandise, particularly its porcelain holiday village collections. Its two existing collections, Bedford Buildings and Coca-Cola Buildings, range from $9 to $12 and $19 to $24, respectively. New this year is Village Building, which retails for $9 to $14 per building.