Clint Engel — Furniture Today,
NAPLES, Fla. — Retailing is all in the details, as four experts

on the subject showed here by dissecting everything from store reinvention and marketing to sales and management.

Earlier this year, Baton Rouge, La.-based Kornmeyers unveiled a 30,000-square-foot expansion and a new name, Kornmeyers HomeSmart. It also broadened its assortment and made other changes in an effort to boost the store’s appeal.

In a session on The Magic of the Retail Experience at Furniture|Today’s Leadership Conference, Kornmeyers President Rose Mary Williams said the redesign has conjured up all the intended results.

“It completely threw the customer into a positive mode … and it improved our margins,” said Williams, an 18-year veteran of the fifth-generation, family-owned business.

With the expansion and overhaul, led by design consultant Grid2, Kornmeyers was looking to attract a broader consumer base, including first-time purchasers, and also wanted to create a more efficient operation and a more appealing shopping environment.

To do this, it grew up and out, expanding to 90,000 square feet. It added a towering glass atrium entrance that vastly improved its look and visibility from the street and helped give the retailer credit for its size. According to Williams, consumers entering the store literally have said, “Wow.”

With Grid2’s help, Kornmeyers improved the traffic pattern (in a store where customers previously had a habit of getting lost) and the placement of departments (bedroom now flows into youth bedroom and bedding, for example).

Its design center became an attractive wall of color. Kornmeyers incorporated the “Smart” in its new name throughout the store, with features such as the Smart Break coffee and hospitality center, Smart Design and Smart Service. The tagline underneath its store name reads, “Shop smart, live well.”

Choosing an identifying word that people are eager to relate to was a smart move, Williams said. “Everybody wants to be called smart.”

Sales training consultant Leslie Carothers approached the subject of a magical retail experience from the angle of unlocking consumers’ dreams, by using language that resonates with them emotionally.

Today’s sales associates have grown up in the fast-hit Internet era, and some struggle to ask the right questions and use the listening skills needed to win over the consumer who is “just looking,” said Carothers,  principal of The Kaleidoscope Partnership and writer of the Retail Ideas blog on www.furnituretoday.com/blog/450000045.html.

She equated the process to fishing. Salespeople need to cast for the consumer’s vision, she recommended, and saying something like, “Tell me about your room,” isn’t enough of a cast. Instead, they should ask about the look or feeling a consumer is trying to create.

It’s all about listening and helping unlock the vision with descriptive adjectives such as crisp, modern, warm or comfortable, then weaving the details of the consumer’s vision and life meaningfully back into the design presentation.

Caroline Hipple, former president of the now-closed Storehouse chain, focused on the importance of team building. She said she and others at Storehouse spent seven years creating a culture that is serving its former employees well as they move into new jobs.

She recommended creating a collaborative environment to develop the mission, vision and values that will guide a company’s initiatives.

“Get the right people in the right place,” Hipple said, and set goals and create clear expectations and well-defined responsibilities for every job.

Among her key steps for creating winning teams is “practice generous praise,” without playing favorites.
“The brand starts from within, and if done well, resonates without,” she said.

Jeannette Greenberg, assistant vice president of upscale Cartier Jewelers, showed how the retailer routinely ties together everything from marketing materials to interior and exterior window displays to create stunning visuals at its flagship store Fifth Avenue in New York — a 6,000-square-foot space where $1 million impulse purchases are not unheard of.

A recent Christmastime display, which featured a giant red ribbon and bow tied around the four-story building, won a top award from a merchant association. And with its flair for cross-merchandising and other marketing techniques, Cartier’s recent entry into the bridal market has been a huge success, added Martin Roberts, president and founder of Grid2, which help the jeweler with a redesign of the flagship.