Charlie and Jason Franzen of Fleck’s Furniture & Appliances.
90-year-old Fleck’s Furniture & Appliances Named Dealer of the Year
YSN Staff
There are family businesses, and then there’s Fleck’s Furniture & Appliances.
The 90-year-old Dickinson, N.D. business has been guided by four generations of the Fleck family beginning with founders Frank and John Fleck, who opened in 1934 as a small storefront selling coal stoves and kerosene refrigerators.
The business was honored for its longevity and excellence at the 2024 BrandSource Convention in Dallas, where it was named the 2024 BrandSource Dealer of the Year for the Great Plains Region.
Co-owner and Great Plains Region board member Charlie Franzen and his son Jason were honored at the buying group’s awards ceremony, which was a highlight of the annual show.
Twenty-Five Strong and Growing
From its original staff of two, the business now employs 25 people and occupies two retail locations and two offsite warehouses. The current staff includes second, third and fourth generation Fleck family members.
That includes Gen, daughter-in-law of founder Frank Fleck, who joined the business in the ‘70s and still works in the accounting department. Gen’s daughter Kris and her husband Franzen are now at the helm, and their kids Jason and Stephanie have key roles in the business.
Aside from its strong family ties and commitment to its community, Franzen attributes Fleck’s Furniture’s success to its 27-year membership in BrandSource. The national, dealer-owned cooperative offers a wide range of retail support services including transactional websites, digital marketing, in-store displays, consumer and inventory financing, volume discount programs and invaluable peer-to-peer networking, which became crucial as the internet and national big-box chains altered the retail landscape.
“Uniting ourselves with BrandSource has allowed us to pool our resources with other small independent dealers for better buying power with the manufacturers and better pricing for our customers,” he said.
Fleck’s Flexes its Muscles
Fleck’s takes full advantage of its BrandSource member benefits, including digital marketing assistance from AVB Marketing, website management, LINQ, ServiceSource, HRSource and BrandSource Financial.
“Our active participation in AVB BrandSource has allowed us to provide competitive pricing and good product availability, and to utilize the most current resources and vision to be at the leading edge of our retail industry,” Franzen said.
The BrandSource Dealer of the Year awards are presented annually to members like Fleck’s Furniture & Appliances that have demonstrated a continued commitment to excellence in the retail industry and to their fellow BrandSource dealers. The winners, who are selected by the members within each of the group’s 14 regions, must also show their support of BrandSource and its vendor partners by attending regional meetings and national events such as the annual Convention and Summit.
YSN publisher AVB BrandSource is the nation’s largest merchandising and marketing co-op for independent appliance, mattress, furniture and CE dealers.
