Roomful Express Furniture

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[edit] History of Roomful Express Furniture

Freight Liquidators

Roomful Express Furniture’s history started in 1958 by Robert Kuhn, who died in 1996, as Freight Liquidators, a company importing Necchi sewing machines and selling them in concession stands in Gimbels Department Stores in Pittsburgh and to independent furniture dealers. The company evolved into a big box furniture store by purchasing the going out of business stock of its furniture dealer customers and selling it out of the North Side warehouse premises it occupied. The first stand alone store was opened in 1973 and within a decade 10 retail locations were open (Marano, 2002). The company now has annual sales of around $78 million and employs 350 people. (Walters)

Name change to Roomful Express

In 2000, while exploring expansion into the Wheeling market, the company made a bold decision to change its name and entire brand from Freight Liquidators to Roomful Express. The decision was a risk as the name Freight Liquidators had built significant brand recognition, but was based on consumer research that showed that the name ‘Freight Liquidators’ did not fit what the company had evolved into – a design-oriented furniture store with quality furniture. Freight Liquidators had made significant efforts to keep the name recognition but shake up the brand so that consumers understood the new company, but it just wasn’t impacting sales the way that a new name could and sales remained flat. (Marano, 2002)

Why Roomful Express? During the name change the owners wanted the new name to ‘say something’ about the company and what it does. Roomful Express has a unique concept in the furniture store industry – they sell furniture by the piece, but they also have complete ‘roomfuls’ that they have had a designer put together. The roomfuls include such things as lamps, accessories, rugs and tables along with the expected larger pieces of furniture. Their stores are set up to display these roomfuls of furniture in a room like setting, along with either a painted or wallpapered wall, so that if a customer feels that they are not design-minded they can just copy the entire room as it appears in the store and have a perfectly designed room of their own. (Ransom, 2002)

Incentive War Roomful Express gained particular notice when they were the subject of an incentive war between three states and multiple cities. When the company decided that it wanted to relocate its headquarters in 2004 it was looking at three states, all of whom attempted to lure the company with great incentives to move. The company eventually decided to stay in Pittsburgh, purchasing a 576,000 square foot building in Crafton, PA. Pennsylvania initially offered $2.7 million, Ohio $2.5 million and West Virginia $3.5 million. But Pennsylvania ended up winning the bidding with a package of grants, loans and tax credits that totaled $4.5 million (Walters). Their old building was eventually bought by Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, a UPMC hospital (Farley, 2007).

Top 100 Furniture Stores Roomful Express is ranked #87 in Furniture Today’s top 100 furniture stores (Today, 2007).

Cutting Edge Technology Roomful Express has remained at the cutting edge of furniture business technology with their implementation of the GERS analytics system, a system that can help them to track inventory and product and supplier performance from a single platform (Wienhofer, 2004).

Jack McGowan In August 2008 longtime Roomful Express COO, Jack McGowan, died after a long battle with Lung Cancer (Today, 2007).

Ashley Furniture The company made a decision to use its experience to reach more market share by taking one of its biggest selling brands and turning it into a standalone store. The Ashley Furniture brand allows its vendors to operate free-standing Ashley Furniture Stores under a licensing agreement that has been given credit for much of the chain’s growth. Roomful Express will operate their Ashley Stores under the name Ashley Furniture Home Stores (Schooley, 2007).

Locations Roomful Express has 9 Pennsylvania Locations and 1 Ohio Location, along with their large warehouse and corporate offices in Crafton, PA. Locations are:

Butler, PA Monroeville, PA Uniontown, PA Greensburg, PA The Pointe, Robinson Township, PA Canonsburg, PA North Hills (McKnight Road), Pittsburgh, PA Monaca, PA West Mifflin, PA St Clairsville, OH

Primary Sources: http://www.roomfulexpress.com

Secondary Sources: Farley, N. (2007, October 10). Children's Hosptial Buys Former Roomful Express Site. Retrieved from CoStar Group: http://www.costar.com/News/Article.aspx?id=90447D166CE450A3E9C7AEB5D06AF668

Marano, R. (2002, October). Mistaken Identity. Retrieved from Smart Business: http://www.sbnonline.com/National/Article/124/4655/Mistaken_identity.aspx

Ransom, L. (2002, September 12). Local furniture chain evolves from its much smaller start. Retrieved from Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_91014.html

Schooley, T. (2007, August 31). Roomful sets popular Ashley brand for standalone stores. Retrieved from Pittsburghbusinesstimes.com: http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2007/09/03/story13.html?b=1188792000%5E1513487

Today, F. (2007, August 28). Roomful Express CEO Jack McGowan Dies. Retrieved from Furniture Today.com: http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/CA6472186.html

Walters, M. L. (n.d.). Pennsylvania, other states, compete in 'race to bottom' for jobs. Retrieved from Times Leader.com: http://www.timesleader.com/news/ap?articleID=173701

Wienhofer, L. (2004, July 22). Roomful Express Implements GERS Analytics Solution to Grow Sales. Retrieved from Internet Ad Sales.com: http://www.internetadsales.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1638

Wikipedia Articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Valley_Mall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniontown_Mall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pointe_at_North_Fayette