Thinking Outside the Big Box

At 160,000 square feet, the top show rooms in the HOM Furniture chain are among the biggest you’ll find in the country. And although size ensures options to suit most tastes, I’ve been surprised to learn that this big box boasts more than volume and value.

Buyers across product categories are highly engaged in the design process, Steve Platt, a buyer for the company’s Passages line of fine furnishings, tells me. The reason: to directly appeal to the tastes of households in the Twin Cities and other Upper Midwestern markets key to HOM. Over the past few years, Platt and a buying team of fifteen have developed a better sensitivity to what customers want. “We start with those needs and then back up into the designs and into the pricing to make sure everything fits when the product hits the floor,” he says.

Buyers articulate these specific needs by working directly with design sources whenever possible. Suppliers often travel to HOM’s Coon Rapids headquarters to get started, presenting line-art drawings and sample boards. Up for discussion: style, shape, even size. It seems the footprints of furniture pieces are getting narrower because of condo and small-space living. Platt gave me an example of how the typical seventy-two-inch-wide dresser, which might be a tight fit in a city space, has in many cases moved aside to make way for pieces in more workable sixty-four-inch widths.

This trend is especially evident in the relatively new Uptown Urban Furnishings line. “Our products are a little tighter in scale,” MaryLou Tyler, a case goods buyer who handles the line, tells me. Such color palettes as blue/brown and orange/red have also proven popular in the line, she notes—a trend consistent with what’s been coming out of markets in Europe. Tyler should know, because part of pulling out the design stops has involved putting in the miles. Canada, Mexico, Vietnam, and Italy are among the countries where HOM sources its furniture. Working closely with sources abroad ensures that the furniture giant is able to stay on top of the latest in materials. “Right now we’re working on a bedroom set made of more eco-friendly bamboo,” Tyler says.

Buyers at HOM also collaborate with sources to design ancillary lines, most notably rugs. The largest World Rugs, part of HOM’s Plymouth show room, measures an impressive 17,000 square feet and stocks thousands of rugs, making it the largest rug show room west of the Mississippi. I was amazed with the breadth of sizes and styles when I first visited the store last year. Choices range from $199 machine- made rugs to hand-knotted options costing upwards of $6,000. “To get the best,” World Rugs buyer Kyle Johansen says, “we often go overseas, straight to the towns where the weavers are.” Some of the most expensive rugs, he notes, take a year or more to make. But with rugs as with furniture, HOM’s endeavor to appeal to all occasionally makes room for $99 special purchases. “We have a very large percentage of one-of-a-kind rugs,” Johansen says, “but we really try to have something there for everyone.”