Furniture store opens in Greenville
July 7th, 2007 Category FurnitureTony Howell kept his eye on Greenville for some time as a potential site for an Ashley Furniture HomeStore. Now that the doors are open for business, his instincts about the city being an ideal market have been confirmed.
The independently owned store that sells the Ashley Furniture Industries brand opened Saturday in the former location of Furniture Distributors on Greenville Boulevard. Howell, and his wife, Nicole, also own an Ashley Furniture HomeStore in Henderson.
“There are some good stores in this town, quality stores, some good operators,” Howell said in an interview Tuesday at the Greenville store. “But to have the big box, Greenville doesn’t have any of that. We’ve seen probably 200 people a day so far with limited advertising. I’m guessing Greenville has been waiting for something like this.”
Ashley ranks No. 1 on Furniture Today’s list of Top 100 companies and was the fastest-growing company on the list four consecutive years through 2005. It had the highest net sales increase of all furniture companies last year, with sales climbing $519 million to an estimated $2.1 billion.
Howell said Ashley has about 320 stores nationwide with plans for 100 more by the end of year. About 60 percent of Ashley furniture is manufactured in the United States, he said.
“Part of what makes our company successful and why we can sell product at the price we sell it is we don’t stock anything here,” Howell said. ” … We cut out that ordering containers of furniture, stocking millions of dollars of product at warehouses. It keeps us very efficient. That’s one of the things our company really buys into, taking out the elements you don’t need, trying to minimize how many people touch something.”
Orders go from the store to an Ashley factory, then is shipped to a distribution center and delivered to the customer in about 10 days.
A 70,000-square-foot distribution center in Pactolus will service the Henderson and Greenville stores and also locations in Jacksonville, New Bern and Rocky Mount that Howell plans to open in the next two years.
The local Ashley store brought 55 new jobs to Greenville, including a sales staff of about 20.
“Every store we build will add in that one distribution center about 30 to 40 jobs per store,” Howell said.
Howell and his wife, along with a then 16-year-old cousin, started in the furniture business about nine years ago, opening Raleigh Furniture Outlet.
That store is still in operation but has changed names to Rooms Unlimited.
Business bits
Big Horn Outfitters opened Thursday at 3550 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (U.S. 264 Bypass) beside Greenville Marine.
Family Foot & Ankle Physicians has moved from 300 E. Arlington Blvd. into a new facility at 1432 E. Fire Tower Road.
Fantastic Sam’s has opened its second Greenville location at Bell’s Fork near Harris Teeter. The shop is open seven days a week, including noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Owners Bill Palmer and his wife, Sylvia, also own the Fantastic Sam’s franchise at 3150 Evans St. in the Lynncroft shopping center, two locations in Jacksonville and one each in New Bern, Kinston and Goldsboro.
