By all accounts, the pandemic year was a great one for home furnishings brands and retailers. Cooped up at home, Americans invested in improving their living spaces. Home improvement retailers, like Home Depot and Lowe’s that serve the DIY-inclined, rose 14% year-over-year. These retailers were aided by being classified as essential retailers during the shutdown, […]
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RSS feed for this sectionRH Expands Its Horizons to a Living Ecosystem
Remember when Restoration Hardware was the quirky DIY-fixer’s catalog for people restoring Victorian houses? It’s come a long way from its home-spun roots back in 1979 when Stephen Gordon founded it. Progressive CEO In his most recent shareholders letter, Gary Friedman, the company’s current chairman and CEO, updates RH’s progress since joining the company in 2011: “The first […]
Design Is Moving Outdoors: Outdoor Living Projects Are Designers’ Greatest Opportunity in 2021
“In the beginning…” people lived in harmony with nature. Nature formed us and gave us all that we as human beings needed to live and prosper. Gradually we learned how to gain power over nature and with that knowledge, cultures advanced and mankind prospered. But as culture became more technology advanced, we took nature for […]
Turning ‘House into Home’ Is Lowe’s Strategy to Take Market Share
Back in 2018, not long after Marvin Ellison took the reins as CEO of Lowe’s, he outlined a three-year strategic plan with the first 12 to 18 months devoted to strengthening retail fundamentals – merchandising, supply chain, operations and customer engagement. The next 18 to 36 months would be used to build up the fundamentals for […]
Ikea Cancels Its Catalog, Breaking a Vital Link in the Customer Journey
As 2020 draws to a close, every retailer is ready to close the books on this most disruptive of years. Ikea is quite literally closing its books. It is ending the 70-year run of its iconic catalog. The Ikea catalog will be relegated to a museum, where it becomes a nostalgic reminder of days gone […]