READ MORE AT WWW.FURNITURENEWS.NET 7
The BFM has announced the dates and a new venue for the 2021 BFM Fabric Show London. Subject to small indoor trade events being permitted, the show will take place on 8th and 9th June, at Twickenham Stadium The Children’s Furniture Company has appointed Derek Lovelock as its chairman. Derek previously held leadership positions at Mothercare, Mama’s & Papas, Jack Wills, Oasis, and Warehouse’s parent company, Aurora Fashions Rehau, a construction material and surfacing specialist that employs more than 20,000 staff at more than 170 locations worldwide, is mourning the loss of its founder and honorary president, Helmut Wagner, who passed away last month at the age of 95 Hypnos has announced that its commitment to carbon neutrality and environmentally friendly product design has seen it awarded The Planet Mark - Carbon Neutral Certification, a benchmark aligned with the UN Decade of Action Proposte 2021, due to take place this April, has been rescheduled to 7-9th September, to be held at Villa Erba, in Cernobbio, and overlapping with Italy’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile The NBF has welcomed four new members to its marketing committee: Ian Lambert, marketing director, Silentnight; Nick Williams, sales manager, Sweet Dreams; Chris Ward, group marketing director, Hypnos; and Paul Little, MD, CPS Group
READ MORE ONLINE AT FURNITURENEWS.NET
CONFIDENT DUNELM TO UPSCALE FURNITURE OFFER Dunelm has reported sales growth of +23% across the 26 weeks to 26th December 2020, despite the impact of store closures in the retailer’s Q2. Digital sales grew by +111%, while the number of active customers grew by +4.4% (driven primarily by online growth). CEO Nick Wilkinson comments: “Beyond the near-term uncertainty, we have never been more confident about the future. Dunelm is a market leader with a challenger brand mentality, in a large and growing segment. We have a clear runway to grow active customers and their frequency across our total retail system and to realise our long-term ambitions.” Nick says Dunelm continues to make good progress on its Customer 1st plan, and has deepened its customer insight – now recognising that around 40% of its sales are derived from 12% of its customer base. On the evolution of Dunelm’s product range, Nick adds: “We will continue to raise the bar in our core product offer as affordability and sustainability become even more important – offering customers
value they can believe in. We will help our customers ‘live well’ from home by introducing new desks and chairs, dinnerware and storage. We will build further scale into our furniture offer through the development of our sourcing capabilities, fulfilment capacity and improvements to the in-store selling experience. “To date in the current quarter, we have been covering approximately 70% of our prior year sales through our home delivery and Click & Collect services. At this level of sales, we are making a modest weekly loss.”
BFC ASKS GOVERNMENT TO EXTEND INDUSTRY ASSISTANCE Britain’s furniture industry is calling on the Chancellor to extend Government help to the sector in his 3rd March budget. In a letter to the Rishi Sunak, the chairman of the British Furniture Confederation (BFC) Jonathan Hindle said that if the UK furniture industry is to return to pre-pandemic levels of business – supporting 330,000 jobs and worth nearly £17b of annual consumer expenditure – the Chancellor must: extend the Job Retention Scheme (JRS) until the end of June 2021; extend the VAT deferral period until June 2021; and extend the business rates holiday for another three months. In his letter, Jonathan points out that many businesses across the industry have only been able to continue employing staff at current levels because of the JRS, and that without the support of furlough
payments, many would be forced to make significant redundancies. With VAT deferrals until June also critical to business survival, the letter further asks the Chancellor for Q1 VAT bills to be deferred for 12 months. In calling for the business rates holiday to be extended, Jonathan points out: “With orders for domestic furniture being predominantly in-store rather than online, furniture retailers are critical to the survival of many furniture manufacturers. It is therefore vital that the Government does all it can to allow retail businesses to continue trading, so that when restrictions are relaxed, orders for furniture can commence again and manufacturing businesses across the UK can respond.”
FURNITURE VILLAGE INTRODUCES VIRTUAL IN-STORE SHOPPING Britain’s largest independent furniture retailer, Furniture Village, has launched Virtual Village, its new 3D virtual store. Offering a “fully immersive shopping experience”, customers are invited to browse the virtual showroom accompanied by expert advice, live from the shopfloor, via phone, LiveChat or video call. They can then ‘walk’ around the store, browsing products and zooming in for a closer look. Every product is shoppable, with all details, options, lead times and prices available at the click of a mouse, plus a handy shortlist option, too. Peter Harrison, founder and CEO, comments: “Our 54 stores may be closed but our Virtual Village is well and truly open for business. We’re
the first independent furniture retailer to embrace experiential retail at scale and I’m delighted by how seamless it is. Virtual Village brings the discovery and excitement of in-store shopping to the digital environment. It’s great to be on the front foot with new technologies that genuinely engage customers and help with the decisionmaking process.” Charlie Harrison, commercial director, adds: “It’s with real agility that we’ve brought Virtual Village to life. It’s wonderful to see our business thinking and behaving in such a multichannel way. I’m particularly proud of how quickly our retail teams have pivoted to online – jumping onto LiveChats, hosting video appointments and really embracing an online-first mindset.”
