by Ashley stores will offer better and best product mix, while Ashley Outlet stores will focus on entry level price points
ARCADIA, Wisc. — Seeking to create two unique retail destinations, Ashley Furniture is eliminating its HomeStore name and renaming its stores to reflect a product mix aimed at different segments of the market.
The company previously has used the HomeStore moniker for its Ashley HomeStore and Ashley HomeStore Outlet locations. The stores will now be called Ashley, and will feature better and best product, while Ashley Outlet, will offer more promotional or entry-level price points tailored for consumers with lower incomes.
“What we are doing is actually bifurcating our brands,” Greg Kammer, Ashley executive vice president, North American Retail, told Home News Now. “Our Ashley HomeStore is now going to be named Ashley and we are going to elevate the brand by bringing in better and best goods and just create a little more of an elevated opportunity for the customer that tends to be more inspirational.”
The Ashley HomeStore Outlet concept has been around for a few years with roughly 60 locations in place. These will now be called Ashley Outlet as seen with a location the company opened in Canton, Georgia, earlier this year.
“We see a big void in the marketplace for that entry-level, promotional price point and we are developing a concept called Ashley Outlet,” he added, noting that there will also be more opportunity for customers to buy items such as bar stools right off the floor. “It will still have a full line of furniture, but it also will have a lot of our RTA (ready-to-assemble) products. It will be focused on those good, promotional price points.”
He added that there will be some cross over in the stores, for example with the Ashley stores offering some more entry level priced goods. Still, both stores will serve largely different customer bases.
“We want to capture more market share, and we believe by bifurcating the two models helps us create differentiation between the two and allows us to serve two different customer bases,” he added. “We believe this will help us drive our continued dominance in the North American home furnishings industry.”
Signs with the HomeStore name are in the process of being removed and replaced with the new store names. This is expected to take place over the next 18 months.
The company also is asking licensees to upgrade their stores to the Ashley 7.0 model, which Kammer described as a cleaner look with fewer walls. An example of this was the recent opening of Broad River Retail’s new Ashley store in Southern Pines, North Carolina, which features the 7.0 design footprint.
“We are looking at how we change up our visual display and merchandising assortment. It’s going to be super good for us,” he said. “We are just asking our licensees to upgrade their stores to the most current version. We have done this since the inception of the program, and we continue to elevate it to maintain our relevancy among consumers.”
Do you have a Jayme Lamp by signature design available L100524