11192015 Nourison's New Brand for Furniture Stores: The Skinny on Nico Home

HIGH POINT, N.C. - Over a year in the making, Nico Home, Nourison's new rug and accessories brand focusing on furniture stores, debuted last month at High Point Market. After identifying the segment ripe for the picking, the company kept its plans under wraps while undergoing a major realignment of existing rug and pillow collections to be rebranded as Nico Home, developing marketing strategies and merchandising materials, and building a sales team of 40 furniture pros.

RugNews.com spoke with Alex Peykar, president of Nourison, and other company execs about the rationale for the new brand targeting furniture stores.

ALEX PEYKAR EXPLAINS THE BACKSTORY

"Nico Home addresses the new reality that today's home furnishings consumers are changing.  They're one-stop shopping at furniture stores for their rugs and furniture because they don't have the time to shop five different stores to put together a room," Peykar explains. "Furniture stores have changed as well. They are taking care of their customers with everything from the floor to lamps, to sofas and bedding. That is the movement: it is real, and we are targeting these stores because that's where customers are shopping."

Alex Peykar of Nourison with Michael Amini at the New York Home Fashions Market in September.  Amini's collection for Nourison will now be marketed under the Nico Home Label.

With Nico Home, Nourison is capitalizing on the fact that the furniture store segment has largely been underserved by rug companies. And by implementing a tiered branding strategy, the company can target the furniture store market offering fast turns and mid-to-volume prices with Nico Home, while maintaining the exclusivity of the Nourison name for its specialty store base. Currently, Nico Home includes machine-made, handwoven and hand-tufted goods, but high-end hand-knotted rugs are reserved for the Nourison brand.

"Let me say that our sales force has been with us for many, many years, and our background has been, and still is in specialty carpet and rug stores, department stores, and some large furniture stores," Peykar says. "Instead of having our sales force take on furniture stores, which they don't have time to concentrate on with everything else they do, we added sales agents to concentrate on furniture stores. 

"All of them all of them are furniture veterans, whether it's sofas, case goods, chairs, and they're representing lines that complements rugs. They already have influence with the buyers at furniture stores; they know the owners. It's an easy transition for them to add rugs, so it definitely was a good move for us," Peykar adds.

At High Point Market in October, Tommy Leflein, vice president of sales for Nico Home, stands beside the innovative Nico Home compact rug display that holds 96 rug samples.

"You know, Nourison has always been a company that went after carpet and rug stores, and big department stores like Macy's and Bloomingdale's. Management was selling big furniture stores, but not to the degree we will be now, because at Nico Home we're going after those big furniture stores with a dedicated sales force," says Leflein, a 40-year veteran of the furniture industry. 

"I've hired a complete sales team of 40 reps to cover the entire country, and they're basically targeting the top 100 retailers. We're going after the big boys: the top A and B dealers in the U.S."

Asked about pricing strategy, Leflein says Nico Home products were selected with price points for furniture stores in mind. "In most cases, they don't want to retail rugs for what the carpet stores and rug stores do. Those channels can demand a higher price. Furniture retailers would rather target the middle of the market with rugs that can go anywhere from $199 to $1,999 in a 5x8. That's really the category that we're aiming for.

"Another differentiator for Nico Home is that everything offered is in stock so customers can get the merchandise when they need it. We can ship out the same day or within 24 hours," Leflein says.

"The goal was to put a line together that would be easy for furniture stores to handle quickly. We wanted them to be able to be up and running without a lot of effort on their part. So Nico Home is not just product per say, but it's also display solutions and sales tools," according to Giovanni Marra, Nourison's director of marketing and digital strategy.

The Nico Home Display calls out the Michael Amini and Joseph Abboud collections, and at High Point Market showcased Amini rug samples and pillows.

To that point Nico Home came to High Point with innovative displays with compact footprints designed specifically for the channel. "Most furniture stores don't have the room to put up 60 arms to hold 8x10 samples. Some will have racks, maybe 20 to 30 arms, but it's not going to be tons. We are encouraging them obviously, because a rug looks much better when it's hanging in a larger size. But if they don't have the space they can opt for one of the compact displays," Marra adds.   

Standing by a fixture which holds about 96 rugs, Leflein declares, "We want this display to go into every retail store and we have programs to do that." He gives Nourison kudos for supporting the Nico Home, Michael Amini and Joseph Abboud displays with one of the largest backup inventories in the country. 

Previewed in High Point, a hard-bound edition of the 110-page Nico Home by Nourison catalog will be sent this month to customers as a reference tool.  The catalog features 33 rug collections and all pillow designs under the Nico Home label.

Marra says Nico Home has been curated to offer a range that covers everything from traditional to contemporary. "But the collections are meant to be easily shop-able," he notes. "There's not a lot of heavy traditional. We're going for a majority of the customer base that just wants easy, trendy matches with their furniture."

He explains that an added benefit to growing its furniture store business is an expanded reach to a younger customer base with Nico Home. "A lot of young people are shopping in furniture stores, and they're buying furniture sets. They want a rug to go along with the furniture, but they're not necessarily looking for a specific make of rug or brand. They just want something that matches the furniture they buy."

BEYOND FURNITURE STORES

A pleasant surprise for Leflein is the response to Nico Home from channels over and above the targeted independent furniture stores. "We just put a program together with Furniture First, a very big buying group, and there are two other buying groups we are targeting. And we'll be going after department stores as well," he says.

Leflein says buyers at High Point were pleased with the fact that the Michael Amini and Joseph Abboud collections are part of the program. "Those will be our two major designer lines because they're not expensive.  They just have tremendous value." 

He says the response from department stores has been, "'Wow, we didn't know you had these price points.' That's the key. People didn't realize that you can buy a Nourison rug called Nico Home, which is our sister company or new division, at a $399 price point. You can start at $199 retail. That's where we go, from $199 and up."

A new cobalt blue colorway introduced by Nico Home at High Point Market to the City Chic rug collection by Michael Amini features a hexagon tile motif in hair-on-hide distressed with a metallic finish.

Introduced by Nico Home by Nourison at High Point Market, the Joseph Abboud Sand & Slate collection is handmade in India of jute in a fashion palette the company has dubbed "the new neutrals."