Clint Engel — Furniture Today,
Rezon8 Living opens new showroom

LOS ANGELES — When former Studio RTA owner Paul Reitzin opened the doors to retailer Rezon8 Living this spring, the venture reflected a wealth of planning, investment and industry experience.

Earthy California colors warm the 10,000-square-foot contemporary store. Throughout the small but airy space, consumers see the retailer’s knack for sharp accessorization and display — signs of the seasoned management team behind the new player.

The concrete pathway through the showroom, stained a rich espresso brown, and the lighting hanging from wide, round, contemporary fixtures, have garnered almost as many wows from shoppers as the vignettes of living room, bedroom, dining room home office and other furniture.

“We wanted to create something, where when you walk in it’s like a breath of fresh air,” said Reitzin, president and owner of Rezon8 Living and parent company Inzane.

His plans include opening more stores in major metro markets and building strong e-commerce and catalog businesses, with the goal of a combined $70 million or so in annual sales within three years.

Reitzin said he has built the team and infrastructure to take the venture to $100 million in sales. At his former business, Studio RTA, which was sold to Sauder Woodworking in 2003, it took him 25 years to reach that point, he said. With Rezon8, the 50-year-old Reitzin said, “I can’t wait that long.”

Rezon8 Living is supported by Reitzin’s Avenue Six Studios, a photography studio just beyond its back wall that has been pumping out quality images and marketing materials for both the store and its e-commerce Web site at rezon8living.com.

The site has been online since June and has generated orders from around the country — New York, Chicago,

Miami, Philadelphia. The company has invested in software/hardware that helps consumers load pages fast, navigate the site easily, and zoom in on product details with great clarity.

“Technology, technology, technology,” said Reitzin. He believes the company’s willingness to invest in high tech is one of the things that will separate Rezon8 from the competition as it goes after its target consumer — the 70 million people who make up Generation Y.

These are young consumers, Reitzin said, who aren’t afraid of buying furn iture online and who appreciate contemporary design at medium prices.

The text in Rezon8 Living’s first four-page color insert, distributed to about 300,000 households through the Los Angeles Times, reflects the retailer’s marketing direction. It takes a shot at some of its higher-end competitors, touting “the de-snobification of great design.”

“We think there’s really a niche in the middle,” Reitzin said. “We don’t want to be Pottery Barn or West Elm.”

 But the store is a step up in scale, design and price from Ikea, he said, adding that consumers “want warm, cozy and big” — at least bigger than some of the furniture he’s seen at Ikea. He also said the store is doing a good job courting interior designers with discounts and other enticements.

The store in Van Nuys, off Interstate 405, has more than 40 key suppliers, including Moroni, Zocalo, Star
t, chair and ottoman by Diva with an Avenue Six Ellis cocktail table.
International, Sitcom and Palliser’s Casana and EQ3 lines, with a sprinkling of imported upholstery from Avenue Six, also owned by Reitzin. All upholstery meets California’s tough flammability standards, even what Rezon8 ships to other states.

All furniture is branded Rezon8 Living. Sofas range from $699 to $4,000 — for a leather sectional — but the bulk of sofa sales are at $1,200 to $2,000.

In addition to opening stores in prime contemporary markets and targeting consumers online, Rezon8 plans to launch a thick color catalog next spring.

The first store here is a testing ground, and despite a tough business climate for furniture, sales have met expectations, Reitzin said. He wouldn’t disclose sales but said, “We’ve had fantastic response.” Some 20% of consumers shopping the store are leaving with $1,000 or more in merchandise, including rugs, vases, even architecture-oriented books.

Reitzin said there are seven big U.S. contemporary markets — New York, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Miami,

San Francisco and Los Angeles — and he plans to open stores in all of them eventually. Next year, the company probably will open two units in Los Angeles before pushing into other markets, starting on the West Coast.

Meanwhile, the e-commerce business has grown fast, said Vice President Steve Harris. He said he hopes the ratio of Web-to-store business eventually will work out to 100-to-1, but said 4-to-1 is probably more realistic.

 “We’re set up to sell anywhere in the country, one piece at a time,” he said, noting that sales are backed by a third-party delivery and warehouse company with 22 locations across the nation. 

As with the photography studio, Reitzin invested millions in infrastructure to make sure the e-commerce experience was second to none. In cyberspace, Rezon8 is able to show a lot more furniture than in the bricks-and-mortar store — at least twice as many items on average, and many times more than that when you throw in color and finish options.

Consumers can even choose from music selections to listen to while visiting the site, everything from Gil T’s “Broken Ambers” to Stolen Identity’s “Argentina.” They also can take a video tour of the Los Angeles showroom, and read design tips from stylist Basia, who happens to be Reitzin’s wife and associate, Barbara Reitzin.

Rezon8 averages its delivery charges nationally to keep the cost reasonable, and usually delivers within two to four weeks of an order, Reitzin said.

The catalog Rezon8 plans to launch next year will be a quarterly publication, again heavily supported by the  photography studio. Reitzen expects it will have staying power. Even with the company’s first four-page color circular, “We found consumers held onto it for weeks,” he said.

Although in business only a few months, Rezon8 Living has picked up some national exposure. The set designer for the highly rated TV show “CSI: Miami” bought items from the store to use during the upcoming season.

Rezon8 sent out a press release that was picked up by Reuters, and even displayed in rotation for a week on a giant electronic news board in New York’s Time Square, showing one of the set director’s selections and the headline: “‘CSI: Miami’ uncovers high fashion contemporary furniture at rezon8living.com.”

by Clint Engel

LOS ANGELES — Paul Reitzin and Steve Harris opened their Avenue Six Studios here about a year ago, intent on building a state-of-the-art photography studio to support Reitzin’s Avenue Six furniture line and his retail plans.

 But a year later, the 15,000-square-foot studio just behind Reitzin’s Rezon8 Living furniture store has become much more — a profit center for the company, attracting everyone from furniture suppliers to reality TV producers to Hollywood stars.

 The reason? Even in this market — minutes from Burbank, Hollywood and entertainment giants Warner Bros., Universal and Disney — Avenue Six is larger and better equipped with new technologies than other studios, said Harris, who is vice president.

 Avenue Six Studios features a wide range of architectural room sets, window treatments, cityscapes, props and flooring options to replicate the looks of a variety of homes and offices. For furniture and accessory props, studio employees simply walk next door and pull from some 1,000 pieces on the Rezon8 showroom floor.

 There are studios within the studio, including a fully functional “gourmet kitchen” for food and kitchen appliance photography. Then there’s the “cove” set to shoot cars and other motorcraft.

 The studio already has attracted shoots for apparel and magazines with star subjects, including singer Jo Jo and Disney Channel “High School Musical” sensations Corbin Bleu, Ashley Tisdale and Vanessa Hudgens.

 “Coming in here, they’re blown away, because the studios they’re used to are holes,” said Reitzin.

 And this is all gravy for the furniture business. The main goal of Reitzin and Harris was to gain creative and quality control over marketing materials for Avenue Six furniture and Rezon8 Living — something they longed for since their Studio RTA days. Reitzin owned the contemporary furniture importer before selling to Sauder Woodworking in 2003.

 While the company has outsourced warehouse and delivery services for Rezone8, they didn’t want to trust a third party with photography.

 “Trucks are trucks. Warehouses are warehouses,” Reitzin said. “This is the kitchen. This is the brain. If  you don’t do things right in there, nothing is right.”

 He said he has invested “several millions” in Avenue Six Studios, including $1 million on the lighting system alone.

 In addition to giving creative control, the studio also helps the company manage costs, and has proven to be a revenue generator, Harris said. It has been booked regularly by Hollywood, an auto seller and other users, including furniture suppliers such as Moroni, Z-Line, Elite, Kings Rattan and Omnia Leather.

 An average day of shooting starts at about $1,800 and can be higher, depending on the services used.

 On a recent Friday, Ben Frankel,  owner of imported case goods supplier Innova Furniture, was here shooting two new groups for a catalog and Web site. Frankel has known Reitzin for 25 years and was one of the studio’s first customers.

 “The primary difference is that Paul, having been in the wholesale business for as long as he was, has some insight into what makes the process move faster,” Frankel said.

 He also praised the quality of Avenue Six Studio’s equipment, which eliminates problem with distortion when images are blown up for printing.

 “I’d say 90% of the time, I walk out of the studio with the polished product and images,” said Frankel.