DESPITE THE CHALLENGES facing many companies, retail store Furniture Village is maintaining a positive outlook.
While general manager Suzanne Hinds acknowledged that operating a business in these economic times has been challenging, she insisted that businesses should remain confident and look at using innovative ways to expand their customer base.
“It’s not been easy. It’s been up and down but it’s about survival of the fittest. You can’t just throw up your hands in despair and shut down shop. You have to be innovative, come up with new ideas and try and work, and we think this is going to work for us,” she said.
Recently, the Pine Hill, St Michael store launched Rooms To Go, an established United States brand that creates and sells packages designed around rooms in the home.
Rooms To Go was introduced here following feedback from Furniture Village customers.
The “quality furniture brand” was started in 1990 and its Barbados partner said it “has forever changed the way people buy furniture and has now grown into America’s number one independent furniture company”.
Hinds said the key was to present products that appealed to both the sense of style and pockets of Barbadians.
“I know these are trying economic times but we’ve been seeing over the last couple of weeks since the Crop Over rush has died down, . . . customers coming in to get ideas of what they can do with their homes because Christmas is just right around the corner,” she said.
Four months ago, a decision was taken for the company, which operated under the Designer Decor umbrella, to branch out on its own.
Hinds said they have maintained their customer base and were trying to capture a new segment of the market. (WILLCOMM)
