|
ABBEY CARPET UNVEILS STATE OF THE ART LABORATORY STORE IN FLORIDA
Keith Spano, Abbey merchandising manager, at the baby grand player piano at the heart of the new Naples store.
By Lissa Wyman
NAPLES, FL -- Floor covering industry big-wigs are gathering this week to celebrate the opening bash at Abbey Carpet of Naples, a 20,000 sq. ft. company-owned store that will function as a laboratory for floor covering retailing.
"This store gives us the ability to test new programs and products before launching them with our general membership," said Keith Spano, Abbey merchandising manager for area rugs, hard surface and window products. "This store will also be used as a showcase for prospective members and as a prototype for existing members who plan to open new stores or remodel existing stores."
Decorative accessories from Decorative Motif are sprinkled through the store.
The Abbey franchize system consists primarily of independent floor covering dealers with stores of all sizes. "This store is a full service floor covering store. We have even added some decorative pillows and small home accents to the merchandise mix," said Spano. "We hope it provides ideas that retailers of every size can use, no matter what the product mix."
Spano stressed that the new store is also meant to be a profit center: "Abbey is headquartered in one of the fastest-growing, most affluent communities in the country. As such, the merchandise mix is a reflection of the customer base."
The tone of the store is epitomized by the baby grand player piano, softly playing classical music. Not only does it set a mood, it's also an example of cross-merchandising. "The piano store is our next door neighbor," said Spano. Similarly, two nearby patio stores use outdoor rugs from Abbey in their room vignettes.
Check out area at core of store
The Abbey store is loosely divided into carpet, hard surface and rug departments. With ultra-high ceilings and an open floor plan, the consumer can see a panoramic view of every department upon entering the store. Yet low-rise display units also create visual demarcation between each product category.
Rug department is adjacent to hard
surface flooring.
Many floor covering retailers show rugs in the back of the carpet department. At Abbey, the rug department is located adjacent to the hard surface flooring. "For the most part, people use rugs on hard surfaces, not rugs. Why not make the combination sale easier for everyone?" said Spano. The floors throughout the hard surface sector are covered in of 13 wood species, marble and tile. Customers can see not only how hard surface material looks on the floor, it also allows them to see how a rug looks with each surface.
Customers can get be seated comfortably while viewing rug assortment.
Over 1,000 rugs are hung in the new Abbey store, priced from $149 outdoor rugs to $20,000 hand knotted rugs. Nearly all the rugs are on 9x12 racks. "We show big rugs because we want to sell big rugs," Spano stressed. "The decision to show large size rugs is also based on the fact that new homes in the area tend to have large rooms and open spaces."
Smaller room size rugs, rounds, runners, and accent rugs are displayed either in small stacks, rolls are vignette displays throughout the stores.
Branded products are merchandised in their own boutiques.
There are six core rug vendors in the Abbey store: Balta, Karastan, Momeni, Nourison, Shaw and Sphinx. "We are also promoting key rug brands such as Andy Warhol, Calvin Klein, Karastan, Kathy Ireland and Tommy Bahama. Each of the brands has its own boutique display within the rug department.
"We don't want to buy from every rug vendor out there. We want to deal with a few suppliers that will be very important to us. Hopefully, we will be important to them,as well," said Spano.
The Abbey rug staff: Shawna Douglas, rug gallery manager; Keith Spano, merchandising manager; Michelle Ogle and Saralee Parus.
The rug gallery is managed by Shawna Douglas and there are three full time rug sales people on the floor at all times, said Spano. "We believe strongly that rugs should be sold by specialists."
The Abbey store had a soft opening in March and the store's grand opening sale went into effect April 2. Thousands of brochures flooded the Naples area in early April. The sales brochures were elegantly printed with mood-setting photography and glossy paper. Yet the promotional message came through loud and clear: "No Payment and No Interest Until 2007."
Abbey is a network of over 800 franchized stores. The company also operates franchized Floors to Go discount stores and to-the-trade Floor Club units.
Next on Abbey's corporate agenda: a protoype Floors to Go store in Ft. Myers, FL, approximately 40 miles to the north of Abbey's Naples store.
Store exterior
|