TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Another choice
for home furnishings
opens tomorrowAshley Furniture HomeStore will open for business at Waikele Shopping Center tomorrow after lots of hustle and deadline pressure, but with little fanfare.
"I'm looking at six containers and lots of workers and it looks like an anthill," said Michael Cutler, Hawaii representative for Ashley Furniture.
"We pretty well dodged a bullet on the (West Coast shipping) work stoppage," he said. "We got enough (inventory) in early."
He credited some "very good people locally" who manage freight inbound from the company warehouse in Los Angeles.
From here on out though, "Whatever happens, everybody's in the same boat, literally."
Based in Wisconsin, Ashley is the latest big furniture manufacturer to open retail stores selling exclusively or mostly its products under its banner. Stores in Hawaii and Salinas, Calif. are the 92nd and 93rd for the company, which plans to have 100 open by early November.
The 50,000-square-foot store in the old Sack 'n Save space at Waikele will carry mostly Ashley products, but it will also offer local vendors' wares. It won't look exactly like any other Ashley store, he said.
"Beyond that we've actually picked up four or five local artists and we're showing their artwork. We're trying to be very community-conscious," Cutler said.
Among the company's 60 employees are staff members hired after completing programs at Goodwill Industries of Hawaii, where Cutler and Ashley Hawaii chief executive officer George Norcross serve on the board of directors.
The Hawaii store is a licensed operation and, counting some ex-pats living on the mainland, is almost 100 percent owned by folks with local ties. About 20 parties are involved all together, Cutler said.
Cutler has been in Hawaii for some 40 years, starting with Sears after graduation from the University of Hawaii. He worked for the department store giant for 25 years in various capacities, heading up operations, personnel and merchandising and running a couple of stores.
Norcross, also a Sears alumnus, goes back even further. "He graduated from Iolani," Cutler said.
Store hours will be 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays.
The company's advertising will look different from that of other Hawaii furniture stores, Cutler said. "We are a factory direct store, so we can keep costs down and prices low."
No "biggest sale of the century until we advertise again next week" type advertising?
"No. Every day the price is the price is the price," he said.
"We are going to mess around for a month doing things before we have a grand opening," Cutler said.
"Basically we'll run ads and do a soft-opening for the most part. We can't really tell our competitors what we're going to do, but they'll know we're there."
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com