by Brands it acquired this past spring are showing in about 27,000 square feet of space in the company’s 100,000-square-foot showroom at 220 Elm
HIGH POINT — At this week’s High Point Market, Banner House is showcasing products from American Drew and Kincaid, the two brands it acquired from La-Z-Boy in May.
At the 100,000-square-foot Banner House showroom at 220 Elm, the two brands will occupy a combined 27,000 square feet, similar to what they had total in the Commerce Wing of the International Home Furnishings Center. Much of the remaining space is devoted to product from Magnussen Home and Pulaski.
The debut under the Banner House umbrella offers a good-better-best story within the line, starting with Magnussen featuring a mid-priced line of bedroom, dining and occasional and Pulaski offering an upper-middle-priced line of bedroom, dining and curios. American Drew offers full collections of upper-middle-priced bedroom, dining and occasional, and Kincaid represents the top of the line, offering a mix of solid wood bedroom, dining and occasional.
Both American Drew and Kincaid are showing new case goods collections this market, representing updated styling for each brand.
Banner House has previously shown products from Pulaski, which it acquired from Hooker Furnishings earlier this year. It also continues to carry the SLF line, also purchased from Hooker, but that is being developed as private label product for retailers around the country.
“Pulaski and Magnussen also will have a whole bunch of new bedrooms and dining rooms, plus curios on the Pulaski side and a whole new occasional table lineup on the Magnussen side,” said Doug Townsend, Banner House president. “Between the four brands, there will be a lot of new product.”
All four brands can also be mixed on containers shipped from a temperature-controlled warehouse in Vietnam. Customers can also mix the American Drew and Kincaid products from a warehouse in Lenoir, North Carolina, and mix the Pulaski and Magnussen products from a warehouse in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
“That is the power of trying to bring all these brands together — to create a compelling value proposition for the customer and to get them to have reasons to bring people into their stores,” Townsend said.
“It is very much a logistics story,” added Page Wilson, senior vice president and a longtime former president at Pulaski before it was acquired by Banner House. “And there is a lot of new and exciting product coming,” he added of the new product being developed by Fred Schubert, vice president of product development.
Much of this is also being guided by the needs of retailers around the U.S., which have been buying American Drew and Kincaid for many years.
“We have been on tour seeing a lot of American Drew and Kincaid customers, which has been super interesting,” Wilson said. “As much as the businesses are the same being case goods, it’s a much more warehouse-driven business and those customers have remained very loyal even though there have been some tough times where they have not gotten support, inventory flow and that kind of thing. You have to have it in the warehouse. It is no different than our direct container business.”
Townsend also believes customers will see a renewed focus and support for these brands that they haven’t seen in some time.
“Banner House is committed to investing in product development and inventory and resources for all of the brands we bought,” he noted. “One of the reasons we bought them from La-Z-Boy (American Drew and Kincaid) and from Hooker (Pulaski) is that they were languishing and they were not being invested in properly. They weren’t given the energy that Page is talking about.”
Wilson also believes there is a chance to cross-sell the different brands — Magnussen, Pulaski, American Drew and Kincaid — to different customers based on their respective needs.
“Yes there is overlap with some customers, but then there are a lot of customers where there is no overlap, and this is a huge opportunity,” Wilson said. “To have them all under the Banner House umbrella in one showroom and then we can mix it all out of our Vietnam warehouse, is powerful.”
The executives also noted that the company is updating the Banner House website to highlight the brands and their respective product lines along with some of the well-known historic collections, particularly under American Drew and Kincaid, where the upper-middle price point dictates the need to have coordinated bedroom, dining and occasional.
Conversely on the Pulaski and Magnussen side of the business, the Magnussen occasional can complement case goods (bedroom and dining) in each line as can various curios, which are unique to Pulaski.
