Lighting Showrooms Strategize in Face of Crisis
Originally published by HFN: Home Furnishings News
NEW YORK — In light of the pandemic, lighting showrooms have also begun to adjust to a new way of doing business, keeping social distancing and other measures in mind.
Now offering curbside pickup, FaceTiming with consumers and emphasizing or bolstering e-commerce, lighting showrooms look to keep fulfilling consumers’ need for lighting, while refreshing their own showrooms or going through inventory.
Others have made the difficult decision to—at least temporarily—lay off employees, some of whom have worked with them for decades. Remaining staff now perform other functions at times.
But business is challenging right now. “Our business has dropped substantially,” said Peter de Steiger, CEO of Ray Lighting Centers, which has three showrooms in the Detroit suburbs. “The [Michigan] governor has banned new home construction and renovation as well as most commercial construction unless it is deemed essential.”
“Cash is king. You need cash to get through this thing,” added David Director, president, Connecticut Lighting Centers. “That’s the toughest part for everyone.”
Robinson Lighting has three showrooms in Canada (Winnipeg, Kelowna and Burnaby) and one in Minneapolis—and all but the Kelowna store is closed. Brett Robinson, president, said that the construction market in Kelowna asked that the store remain open, though the retailer has posted signs for consumers to check out products online and only come into the store if need be, and especially not if they have traveled recently or have COVID-19 symptoms.
For Robinson’s three closed stores, it has a limited amount of staff, which work on quotes for builders, designers and electricians, as well as ship orders and do curbside pickups. In its larger Winnipeg and Burnaby stores, it has tried to split staff into two groups, so they can switch in and out in case someone came down with COVID-19, he added.
“We will do appointments in the store when necessary,” and that includes using FaceTime so staff could show customers the options in its showroom, said Robinson, whose grandfather founded the retailer in Winnipeg in 1936. It is still working with designers, either through FaceTime or Zoom. “We were approached from a lot of our account customers asking if we would be open, answering phone calls, delivering orders, etc., so we wanted to insure them we were business as usual as best we could.”
Robinson added that his sales people have been “outstanding,” helping out where they can, and giving out their personal cell numbers so customers can call them.
All of Capitol Lighting’s showrooms in New Jersey and Florida are temporarily closed, said Ken Lebersfeld, CEO, though it is making in-store appointments for construction trade clients only. In-store sales teams are now fielding local e-commerce calls. Most of its employees are working remotely, he added, and it has daily video conferencing calls with its teams. Capitol has also shifted its marketing message, driving people to e-commerce rather than the stores.
Ray Lighting Centers had to temporarily close its stores as of late March, said de Steiger. It is allowed to work with contractors as it sells electrical supplies and power equipment, which are considered essential, he said.
With the drop in business, it had to lay off 55 of its 80 employees, de Steiger added. It has outside salespeople, purchasing and computer people working offsite, while its on-site staff addresses customer orders, ships deliveries, receives material, handles credit and collections and manages the inventory. “We are hopeful of bringing all or most of our associates back to work as soon as the governor re-opens the state, but until then our hands are tied.”
“For the first time in 48 years we had to furlough a large number of people,” said David Director of Connecticut Lighting Centers, which has two lighting showrooms as well as Restoration Lighting Gallery in Connecticut. It previously employed 80 people.
While “we can’t be open through the front door,” Connecticut Lighting Centers continues to work with builders, interior designers and architects as well as consumers. “We’re trying to reach out to them all,” so that part of the business is not so different, said Director. The one big difference, Todd Director, vice president, added, is that “there’s no [physical] interaction.” It will meet tradesmen at its back dock, so they don’t have to walk through the showroom, for example.
It also has a 25,000 square foot distribution center, so it has a large enough inventory that it can drop ship many items itself, or the manufacturer can, Director added.
“People are doing projects that they haven’t before—now they have the time,” said Director. And that includes his company, as he is bringing back a small number of employees to go through displays and the warehouse. There are probably 100 to 150 introductions from January’s Lightovation that need to be put on display, he said. “It’s a good time to get caught up in the showroom.”
“I don’t want to just survive, I want to get ready for when the business gets back,” Director said.
Ray Lighting Centers is also using this time to get caught up on dead or slow moving stock and upgrading its displays, de Steiger said.
Robinson said that people were still shopping, and though most customers are picking up their pre-existing orders, the company noted that people seem to be doing renovations or updating their home lighting. “People are stuck at home; if they are handy they might as well install a new fixture or 10!”
Connecticut Lighting Centers has also switched its digital marketing from driving traffic to the showrooms to encouraging people to support local businesses and showcase style trends, said Director. And its e-commerce is up 50 to 75 percent, he said. In terms of what’s selling, purchases are across the board.
Regarding e-commerce, Robinson said, “We are a little behind the times as far as online sales, but with all that is going on we’ve ‘turned on’ our shopping carts and are starting to see sales flow through.”
Ray Lighting Centers, which celebrated its 80th anniversary last year, does still take phone orders from consumers, and it has an online presence to show its lighting fixture assortment, though it does not have fully integrated web order entry, de Steiger said. It delivers to consumers and offers curbside pickup to both protect associates and customers, he added.
Director believes that brick and mortar retail will bounce back after this crisis ends. “People will appreciate human contact that much more.” Consumers want to touch and feel products, he said. However, “no one in my lifetime has seen anything like this.”
“In a perfect world we hope we bounce back stronger than when this all started, but realistically we think it will probably be a slower comeback,” said Robinson. “I still feel thankful that customers still want to touch and feel fixtures in our showrooms so hopefully that continues . . . Lighting will always be needed so we will be there to help them. We are doing what we can to make sure we pull out of this pandemic and we know we will.”
The American Lighting Association has been offering all of its online education for free to members during this unprecedented time, and which includes live and on-demand webinars and its Lighting Associate program. Well over 1,000 members have been taking the courses and viewing the live webinars, which is more than three times its annual sign-ups, the ALA said.
Original article can be found on the Home Furnishings News website
www.HFNdigital.com
About the author:
Andrea Lillo, Managing Editor
Andrea is passionate about home design, and has covered the industry for most of her journalism career. She currently serves as HFN's managing editor, as well as editor of the HFN Idea Book and co-host of HFN’s podcast, The Inside Scoop. In addition, she is the lighting editor for sister publication Home Accents Today. Andrea lives in beautiful Brooklyn, where she could very well be the only person without a tattoo.
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