| AMIR LOLOI DETAILS GROWTH STRATEGY, JOANNA GAINES LAUNCH IN HIGH POINT
 Amir Loloi, CEO of Loloi Rugs, says plans are underway for expansion into additional home products categories. |
DALLAS -- Raking in double digit increases in sales last year and expecting the same for 2016, Loloi continues its successful fashion-driven growth strategy with a staggering rollout of 19 new collections at market, including the much-anticipated Magnolia Home by Joanna Gaines, which company CEO Amir Loloi tells Rugnews.com is already a huge hit among buyers.
"The biggest growth [for the company] in dollar amounts is going to be from our rugs, but the large growth in terms of our customer base is from our other home textiles. We've had double-digit increases every year in our history, even during the recession," Loloi notes of the company he founded in 2004.
Magnolia Home by Joanna Gaines will debut this week in High Point with 300 to 400 SKUS in a huge dedicated space within Loloi's showroom.
Expansion into New Categories Planned
Since those early days, the company has grown its product offering to include not only rugs but a rapidly expanding assortment of pillows and throws. In fact, the foundation is now being laid for Loloi's expansion into other home categories, Loloi explained, adding that new areas of interest include the kitchen and outdoor product line extensions.
Huge Joanna Gaines Presentation
With the phone already ringing with buyers interested in a piece of the Joanna Gaines program, Loloi anticipates the premiere assortment to be a hit in High Point. Loloi will showcase the eight Magnolia Home collections, which include rugs, pillows and throws and feature 300-400 SKUs, in a "humongous space" set within its High Point Market showroom, IHFC D-320.
"Magnolia Home is the most incredible licensing opportunity that exists today because Joanna Gaines touches so many people's lives every day," Loloi said. "She's not just a celebrity; she touches people's hearts and she relates to them. When she mentioned [in a blog] that she was working on a new rug line, tens of thousands of her [online] followers wanted to know when and where they could buy it."
The Waco, Texas-based Gaines and her husband, Chip, own and operate Magnolia Home, and are the stars of HGTV show Fixer Upper.
"It is going to be amazing. Our customers are telling us: 'We don't need to know what it is or what it looks like. Can we just have the product?' Accounts that Loloi has never dealt with before, now want to come and buy our products. It's insane. I've never seen anything like this."
With 2.1 million followers on Instagram, and an average of 70,000 likes per post, Gaines generated thousands of comments about where to buy her new Loloi rugs.
Tapping a Broad Consumer Base
The Magnolia Home line of rugs offers a range of looks from transitional to traditional and from natural textures and global designs to Scandinavian, tapping into the broad swath of Joanna Gaines followers. Constructions run from hand woven to machine made, always with a fresh approach that is reflected in Gaines' interior designs.
For a sneak peek at the rugs and a comprehensive overview of the collection and design philosophy read RugNews.com's Joanna Gaines High Point Preview here.
On her social media posts Gaines tells followers the Emmie Kaye collection (shown) and Ella Rose are named for her daughters.