AVB’s Dave Meekings announced the major new furniture partnerships in his Monday morning address.
Next phase of FTS Direct brings more furniture firsts
By Alan Wolf, YSN
One year after launching FTS Direct at Convention 2023, AVB’s home furnishing wing is back with an exciting new twist on its direct-sourcing concept: direct group buys from leading furniture brands Ashley Furniture Industries and Coaster Fine Furniture.
For those unfamiliar, FTS Direct began by allowing multiple members to share in mixed container loads of merchandise ordered directly from Asian factories. By pooling their buying power, dealers can now enjoy close to factory-direct pricing without committing to a full container of furniture.
The first harvest of FTS Direct was a premium collection of leather motion upholstery that members could mark up for fat margins or price aggressively and still make a healthy profit. And, based on that initial success, a second sourced grouping is on its way, comprised of low-cost, high-quality lift chairs.
Now, in a breakthrough variation of that strategy, AVB and FTS are working directly with Coaster and Ashley to bring savings to BrandSource dealers and value to their customers. Unlike the mixed container loads for recliners and lift chairs, the partnership with Coaster will allow FTS to aggregate orders from members and order collectively as AVB, affording BrandSource dealers access to national account-level pricing.
According to AVB COO Dave Meekings, who announced the new program this morning in his main stage address, Coaster customers will enjoy improved margin opportunities as well as exceptional 60-day terms, the latter by leveraging BrandSource Financial (BSF), the group’s in-house floor-planning arm.
Conversely, the new program with Ashley melds the original mixed container concept with a direct-buy feature like the Coaster partnership. Under the plan, members can purchase a full or partial mixed container of between 25 and 35 core products that are stored at Ashley’s central warehousing facility in Asia for shipment to their stores.
“This is a unique program, available only through the group, and it brings some real benefits to the member,” Meekings said. These include steep discounts that provide an additional 10% of margin on Ashley’s high-velocity, core SKUs (“A very big deal for day-in and day-out product,” he said), plus extended 90-day terms through BSF, which will allow members to sell the merchandise before they have to pay for it.
Meekings cautioned, however, that the programs only work when members act like a group by joining forces and combining their orders. “If you do, the sky’s the limit,” he said, and urged attendees to sign up for the programs this week at the FTS booth. “This will allow us to begin building a product flow into the U.S., so members can take advantage of the margins and terms, making them both profitable and competitive.”
YSN publisher AVB BrandSource is the nation’s largest merchandising and marketing co-op for independent appliance, mattress, furniture and CE dealers.
