The other Washington DC area dealer - Greenfront

[drcollie]

Today i was at Greenfront Furniture, looking for a decent outdoor sofa (I hate mine from Beachcraft, what a piece of junk). I haven't been there in awhile, and the store has changed. The outdoor furniture collections. have expanded and there is lots to choose from. The rest of the store is mostly upholstery - very few case goods in comparison to what they used to have. Of course, I wandered over to their Hancock and Moore section, which was pretty robust last time I was there. It's pretty sad looking now, with uninspiring choices (such as four Austin Recliner all in the same leather, why would you put four out on the floor that are identical?). It's all mixed in with leather from other companies with little to no attempt to merchandise it. They used to put the specs on the sales tickets, now its all coded so you as a consumer can't cross-shop it AND the prices are higher than they used to be. Interesting.....I always thought they sold too low, guess they finally figured that out.

But the larger issue is - you come into the area of the store and are just ....well.....unimpressed. There will be a $ 900 leather chair from a company no one ever heard of next to a $ 4,000 Hancock and Moore chair. And both have a stack of pillows in the seat that need to be moved somewhere else. Since the sales staff likes to stay behind the counter, you are on your own to figure out things. If I were just a consumer, I'd look at the price tags and move on, confused by the offerings.

As I was leaving, I placed a phone call to Hancock and Moore's President and left him a Voice Mail to call me. With my store closed now, they DESPERATELY need a decent store to carry their product in a Gallery environment - or they should set up a company owned store in the Tysons Corner area. In a region as affluent as Metro Washington DC with 6.3 million people and money to spend, they need something far better than Greenfront to show their brand.

No, I'm not opening a new store.....my wife would kill me. But if I were, I'd slay it.

[choubeck]

I agree with you that Greenfront is not the ideal showcase for Hancock & Moore for that area. It is too far away from D.C. itself and most of the Maryland suburbs and they have never done a great job marketing their lines. I have not been in 5+ years, so I can't speak to the changes. All that said, I used to like the store second only to yours. You turned me on the fact that they bought the H&M and others showrooms from the Market and they had blazing deals on some of the items. I only bought a few items from them, but they had truly amazing deals on Wildwood lamps and H&M from the showroom, among others. Their sales staff wasn't great, but I found one guy (who has long since moved on) that was pretty good. Hopefully H&M can find somewhere else - the Tysons Corner idea is a great one!

[drcollie]

The have changed, definitely. No longer the massive bargains they used to be and their delivery fees are ludicrous. To my home from their store is $ 250 (16 miles), and they charge a whopping $ 900 to deliver to downtown Washington DC. By comparison, I was $ 110 to my house (16 miles) and $ 140 to downtown DC. They have bold charges!

[Judyg951]

The have changed, definitely. No longer the massive bargains they used to be and their delivery fees are ludicrous. To my home from their store is $ 250 (16 miles), and they charge a whopping $ 900 to deliver to downtown Washington DC. By comparison, I was $ 110 to my house (16 miles) and $ 140 to downtown DC. They have bold charges!

That's extremely high. I paid under $500 ish for my furniture to come to Ca from H&M through the Keeping Room and didn't think that was too bad.

[drcollie]

That's extremely high. I paid under $500 ish for my furniture to come to Ca from H&M through the Keeping Room and didn't think that was too bad.

It's the new way, make the client pay on the back end. Similar to Ticketmaster, any Airline or any New Car Dealer. 95% of furniture buyers want delivery and installation, they lack the vehicles to transport and even if they get it home, often the muscle to get it into the home. They know that and zing you after you have made the decision to buy. I bought some new outdoor furniture from Green Front last week (I did not have a good outdoor line for The Keeping Room) and figured if they charge $ 100 to drive it the 16 miles to my house, I'll pay it. When they said $ 250 I took a pass and told them I will bring my own box truck and self-haul. That gave my salesperson pause "No one hardly ever does that". Then I told him I was in the business and kept back a box truck, dollies, pads and the know how to do it.

Ethics. I was pretty Old School in running The Keeping Room. I did not believe in price gouging, nor holding an "advantage" over my customers. So I spend a lot of hours computing delivery charges and tried very hard to do them at cost. For the most part it worked out well, it was not a profit center. But its tough to manage, because of traffic, problems with entry ways when we show up, that sort of thing.

A couple of times a month I'd get taken to the cleaners where the customer would have my guys doing all sorts of add-ons moving a bed to the basement ("While you're here") when all they bought was a recliner. That would frost me because they never offered to pay ME extra for the hour they kept them, so it cost me $ 50 for their "Demanded Favor" and put the next four delivery stops behind one hour. Or you tell then a window for delivery and they're not home so the guys sit in the driveway 40 minutes waiting. Occasionally someone would contest the delivery fee thinking it too much, and then they were welcome to self-transport.

Running your own delivery trucks is quite costly. The Vehicles themselves are expensive, the diesel fuel @ $ 4.50 a gallon, the maintenance, then the two guys on the truck, plus commercial insurance, warehouse space and worker's comp. I probably didn't charge enough, but there you go.