Marc Barnes
\nMIAMI GARDENS, Fla.\u00c2\u00a0— Top 100 store El Dorado Furniture wins praise from Wells Fargo Financial for the breadth and quality of its private-label credit program.
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\nThe store makes it a point to reach every customer it can. Roberto Capo, chief marketing officer of the nine-store Florida chain based here, said the idea is to catch anybody and everybody in the marketplace, regardless of whether they have cash or need to finance their purchases. Terms at El Dorado run from three to 24 months.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153To be competitive, we have to offer all of the plans,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Capo said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Some people prefer to pay it off in six months, just not to have the hassle. We also have minimum purchases \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to get a (longer) term like 24 months, they have to have a higher minimum purchase than the three months would be.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
He said El Dorado sets itself apart from the competition by offering a menu of financing options, rather than just one or two plans.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we do direct mail, we will offer a discount for dollars and we include a promotion with a financing offer, and most likely it will be a year or a little more, depending on the discounts that we are offering,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Capo said.<\/p>\n
Salespeople are trained to show customers how they can save a few dollars if they pay cash instead of financing for six months or, alternatively, spend as little as $50 more to qualify for a full year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s financing.<\/p>\n
Capo said financing can be a delicate balancing act, and salespeople are trained to bring it up at the end of the sale, or when the customer starts talking about money. Some customers don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want financing at all and see it as a hassle. And the offers aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t spelled out on big signs throughout the store, because the $4,000 minimum for the longest financing might scare them away.<\/p>\n
Capo said it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to include deposits and minimum payments in financing plans because the rates are better for both the store and the financing company \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less risk.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If they are going to default, you will find out within the year, instead of waiting until after the finance period and finding out the customer is not going to pay at all,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153At least you are going to know in the first couple of months whether they are going to pay late or what the payments will be.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Capo noted the store hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been taking a closer look at customers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 credit ratings lately because requiring minimum payments has meant less fraud. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can actually see it getting better,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n
But Capo said that for a store to be successful, its priorities have to be in order.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153In our stores, the focus is not on the financing, even though we have it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We try to sell our furniture and also offer the financing. If you advertise only financing, you are not looking at the furniture, only at the financing. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when you become a commodity and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what you want your product to be.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
There are two kinds of furniture retailers, Capo said, one that sells financing, the other that sells a lifestyle or a brand.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Financing and price isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t everything,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It has to be a combination. You have got to have the quality furniture; you have to be there when the customer needs you. Selling style and color and customer service and having the financing there in the background really completes the package for us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marc Barnes MIAMI GARDENS, Fla.\u00c2\u00a0— Top 100 store El Dorado Furniture wins praise from Wells Fargo Financial for the breadth and quality of its private-label credit program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furniture-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}