Make your customer friendly

ager, Windsor Mill, Windsor, Ca. Rick Kavooras, vice president, Mouldings & Millwork Inc., Live Oak, Ca., and El Paso, Tx., agrees: "Mouldings add warmth to a home, but one fact of d-i-y life is that people are afraid of something they haven't been exposed to. Moulding is kind of like a long lost brother."

ll OULDINGS are in. Clean, lUl stylish, symmetrical, full, warm, they are fast reaching a new high in popularity. But among the vast number of people who would love to have their homes decorated with mouldings, only a very small percentage has actually been lured into making the purchase.

"Consumers are back liking the

Story at a Glance

Ways to cure fear of moulding recommendations for advertising, displaying, customer service. free help available from associations, manufacturers, distributors. moulded look, rather than the bare bones California look that was popular for some 30 years. Yet the man on the street knows virtually nothing about how to get that look. It's as foreign as another language," says Jim Stroupe, sales/marketing man- ment manager, Georgia-Pacific Corp., Atlanta, Ga., thinks ads can at least plant the seed. "Just a piece of moulding doesn't turn anybody of,," he explains. "We offer good looking ad slicks showing mouldings in use. We play up the fact that they can give rooms an entirely different look. It's the perfect project for spring and especially fall, when people are looking for indoor projects."

Considering how relatively simple mouldings are to install and how high their profit margins are, so many sales should not be derailed. For maximum merchandising effectiveness, moulding experts suggest A.D.S. - Advertise, Display and Service.

Most effective are articles in home magazines with full color photos of moulded rooms. Industry agencies strive to generate such publicity, but individual companies can attempt to duplicate the effect on a smaller scale. "ln ads, show an area of a home that has cheap, basic trim and also run a photo of that room decorated with different mouldings, before and after," says Kavooras. "Still, this does work best in color magazines."

Display

A retailer'sattitude towards moulding can make or break his moulding sales. "Dealers often treat

Advertise

Although lumber dealers run tons of flyer and newspaper advertising, there is rarely the slightest mention of moulding. This shouldn't be surprising. "It's very diflicult to advertise mouldings in a flyer," says Stroupe. "A few dealers who do advertise mouldings will show two or three profiles. But that will only motivate contractors."

But Neil Heflin, moulding depart-

August 1988 mouldings like a commodity. They're not. They're decorator items and should be treated as such," says Heflin. "lt shouldn't be sold as something to hide mistakes and cover cracks. It's for creating picture frame effects on walls, using around fireplaces and doors, accenting a room to transform its appearance."

"They'll store mouldings either out in a cold warehouse or in a poorly lit area in the back corner of a store," he continues. "They should be displayed in a more highly decorative, better lit section in a nice display near the front of the store."

Explains Jim Gonsalves, owner, Western Wholesale Moulding, Glendale, Az.: "lt's intimidating for a housewife to go back to a dusty shed and sift through random length mouldings. It just confuses her. Cutto-length mouldings displayed in the store in a self-service manner will work for her."

Wood Mouldings

to instant sales. Knowledgeable, suggestive sales people and weekend clinics on how to measure. miter. cope, stain and apply mouldings can help.

Mouldings can be sold as accessories to painting, paneling and wallpapering jobs. There are also a small number of tools and accessories needed for installations. And mouldings can also be used as their own "accessories." Some of the most ornate effects are created simply by combining different profileg.

"Just explain, 'You need a miter saw, so much of these l0 profrles, take our video for the weekend, and good luck,"' says Stroupe.

door, see how they would look in real life."

Georgia-Pacific has introduced two special moulding merchandisers. The first, a half A-frame with an 8 to l2 foot telescoping rack, allows stores with height restrictions to display longer lengths. The other is an attention-getting cube for stocking short lengths. "Shorts are usually given away, thrown away or sold at a discount," says Heflin. "But people often don't have room in their cars for 12 foot lengths or have smaller rooms at home. If merchandised properly - by the piece, shorts can make more money for you than can lineal lengths."

Dorris Lumber Co., Dorris, Ca., has given their mouldings the ultimate display case: an entire Moulding Mart, transforming a shed adjacent to their retail store into a minimarket for trim.

Conventional disPlaYs may not always be the best alternative. "I don't think a wall chart or samPle board does much for a consumer, although they maY offer contractors some options," says Stroupe. "Consumers need more stimuli. Construct a mini-room at the storeVictorian on one wall, art deco on another, with pieces of moulding installed over the fake walls."

"It's hard to comPrehend how the in-store product will look when applied at your own home," saYs Kavooras. "So something I've seen is a room setting with a door frame, window treatment and a Velcro wall. Velcro is also on the back of different profiles of mouldings. Customers can play with the different patterns, put them up on the wall, around the

Service

Getting the moulding-friendly customer to your display may be the hard part, but incidentals can add up

Manufacturers and associations have literature available. And distributors are ready and able to help. "We pre-stamp, pre-price, do the ordering for retailers, and keep their racks looking good," says Gonsalves. "For a small extra fee, we can also cut bundles and stock the bins. Find a good distributor and let him go to work because it's in his best interest to move as many mouldings through each store as possible."

A little merchandising can help you and a lot of customers. "At my house, there are a lot of mouldings in many patterns, " says Stroupe. "People come over and say, 'Wow! This must've been done a hundred years ago.' I tell them the guy did it six months ago. They think it's a lost art, like carving stone."