"We believe at Taft that each employee contributes to the Company's growth and success, we like to think of ourselves as friendly and informal. The cornerstone of our business is our commitment to deliver quality products and services to our customers."
Company Description
Is a family owned retailer, founded in 1960 by Walter Mulcahy; the business originality started in downtown Troy under the name Mulcahy's Inc. Then in 1971 they had to relocate the business because the Federal Urban Renewal Agency was buying up the retail business buildings and demolishing them.
On August 26, 1972, Walter Mulcahy opened the first Warehouse- Showroom concept to New York State and surrounding states. This was so that the customer …show more content…
would be able to purchase low priced furniture and pick-it up in the same day. This would be a large warehouse to keep merchandise in stock.
Taft Furniture has increased its size from 110,000 square feet to now having 160,000 square feet with a warehouse that measures to over 50 feet tall. In addition, to the original store, Taft has expanded to opening a second warehouse in Albany and as well as a new showroom store in Saratoga Springs, New York (one hour north of Albany) with over 45,000 square feet, which was built recently, September of 2006.
In the store, Taft offers an affordable low priced, brand name furniture and bedding. Customers are allowed to special order right from the vender as well and still take advantage of the low pricing and financing packages. Taft has a fully staffed customer service department as well as a delivery department, customer service, associates, and repair division.
Strategic Focus and Plan
Mission/Vision
"We want to improve the look and comfort of our customer's home, at the same time creating a shopping experience that is not only convenient, but unique."
Goals
Non-finical goals: Taft Furniture wants to be the largest furniture store in the northeast. They want to have their competitors worried about whether they are going to expand and move into their area. Taft also wants to continue expanding in New York and into surrounding areas one day.
Finical goals: In 2005, Taft Furniture's estimated net sales were $16,800,000.
Their total sales with only one store were 25 to 29.9 million dollars. Taft financial goal is to increase their sales ten percent from the pervious year and make a profit.
Core Competencies and Sustainable Completive Advantages Have two stores in different key locations. This makes it easy for people to travel to the store. Unlike Taft, other two major competitors: Morandians and Old Brickonly have stores close together in the Albany area. Taft's third major competitor has different stories in the Albany area and in surrounding states. However, they do not have a furniture store in the Saratoga area near Taft's second location. Taft also have has two large warehouses. This makes the product easily available. Pieces are in stock and ready for the customer to pick-up on a weekday or weekend. Taft has a one year price protection program where as other stores only offer up to thirty days. What this price protection program offers is that if you buy a product and then in a couple of weeks later the furniture is on sale you will be able to get the monetary difference back. Situation Analysis
SWOT …show more content…
Analysis
Taft Furniture has many strengths; they have a high creditability within the capitol region and know by being the Big Store' in Albany, New York. Taft has been doing a superior job with customer service and profits; therefore, they were able to open a new store as well as an additional warehouse. Taft has had the ability to expand in many of their other departments as well because of the advantages being more profitable and satisfying their customers. Their delivery department started off with only having two trucks and now to the higher demand they have escalated to eight delivery trucks.
Taft Furniture's weakness is now that they are starting to expand even more that their internal communication between different managers and departments may be effected.
If Taft gets too big it will be more profitable money wise but what about customer service wise. It may change the way the customers are being treated and they may not hear of the problem until it is too late to save the customer. Also, Taft is still a small business; they are not a big chain furniture store so they are not able to expand in other ways such as technology and filing system. They do not have the money to upgrade completely to a new computer system that will allow them to lose a useless stack of paperwork. They have to file the paper manually and save all the paperwork incase they need it in the long run to help a customer. If they were able to upgrade their technology, they would be able to save all the paperwork in the computer and not have to worry about a paper trail. Taft goes through so much paper that it becomes very costly. Another weakness is that Taft is still small in comparison to major furniture chains and is confined to it is available space. They are unable to open up online ordering. This is something that their competitors are doing while Taft is not able to offer this feature. This may hurt
them.
Taft Furniture has an opportunity for growth within and without side the company. They can build the employment team stronger to have an improved customer service and enhanced the teamwork internally in the company. Taft has the chance to expand their store even more to increase their profit and recognition.
The greatest threat to Taft is a major chain such as Nebraska Furniture Mart. It is one of the largest furniture store chain. If one of them were to come into New York they would hurt Taft Furniture's business tremendously. As of now, Taft's biggest threat is Raymour & Flanigan. They are also a major chain that is already in the capital region and are building more stores in the area.
Industry Analysis
A major factor that would affect Taft Furniture is the house market. Whether people are buying or selling their houses. People have to have a need to buy furniture and they their high-test need for furniture is when they are moving into a house and need to furnish their new homes. When the house buying market is low so is the furniture market. When there is a boom in the real-estate selling market the sales of furniture goes up.
Competitor Analysis
The competitors have more stores in many locations over the capitol region and in surrounding states. They are a larger chain and have creditability to a larger demographic from different areas in the northeast. For someone new to the area they may have heard of the other competitors before they have heard of Taft not knowing Taft's reputation.
One of the competitors offers their customers a chance to buy everything online. Online shopping makes purchasing furniture more convenient and easy for the customer where they never have to leave home to buy furniture. Where as Taft does not do that you either have to come into the store or call the store to make a purchase. This competitor will allow the customer do everything online and not have to talk or deal with anyone from the store, making it easier and quicker. The competitor is only able to do this because they're chain is so big and have more money and easier access to do something like that.
Taft Furniture has three major competitors. These three competitors are direct competitor because they are all located near Taft's Furniture store that is Taft's asset and largest profit makers. They hold the greatest threat to Taft.
The first major competitor for Taft Furniture is Raymour & Flanigan. Taft and Raymour offer a lot of the same benefits for shopping at their store. Deliveries are in a timely fashion, price guarantee, a room designer and great customer service. However, Raymour is a greater chain than Taft. They have many stores all over the capital region and in New York State as well as other northeast surrounding states. They have a greater territory than Taft. Due to how big Raymour is they are also allowing you to purchase their products online and even able to set-up delivery. Everything is only a click away for them.
The second major competitor of Taft Furniture is Old Brick. They have three locations that is one more location more than Taft. However, their locations are all pretty much in the same location of each other. Taft has one location in Albany and one in Saratoga Springs, New York (an hour north of Albany). They are an hour apart trying to reach different areas of customers. Where Old Brick is stay close and targeting the same audience. Old Brick also advertises that they have a price guarantee and will beat anyone else's sale price. This is not much different from Taft because Taft has the same police. They are guaranteed their price up to a year and if it goes on sale during that year they are able to get their money back.
The last major competitor of Taft is Mooradians. They have only one location right now but are in the process of building a new location that will be in Clifton Park, New York (a half and hour from Albany). Promotional styles are different on their website, they do not flash any promotions or sales that are going on. Taft and other competitor flash the savings you can have and the sales that are going on. Instead, Mooradian kindly invites to look at their flyer if you would like to see their sales. Also, another contrast that Mooradian does differently then the other competitors is that they help you design your room. The alternative to this is coming into our store or give us a call and we would gladly take the time to help you design your room.
All the competitors seem to offer different brands. This is what makes each store different and may be the price variation of each store depending on what manufacturer it goes through. This sets the four stores all different from one another.
Regional Analysis "Capital District is four surrounding counties near the capital of New York: Albany County, Schenectady County, Rensselaer County and Saratoga County." The capital district in 2000 census had a population of 848,879 and was ranked fifty-six most populated in United State. Taft Furniture has two major stores located in two of the four popular counties. The first is located in Albany County (Colonie, NY) and the other is Saratoga country (Saratoga Springs, NY.) The Colonie store targets the capital region and also parts of the Mohawk Valley Region. In addition to targeting those above areas, Taft in the Albany County tries to target people in Southern part of Capital Region and Mohawk Valley. The Saratoga store was put in to target the northern part of Capital Region and Mohawk Valley. They placed them further enough away from each so it would be convenient for their customers but close enough so they would still be able to keep communication between the stores.
Colonie is a total of 59.7 square mile. "In 2006, Colonie was racked the sixth safest place to live in United States." Colonie has a population of 79,258 people. There are 30,980 households and 20, 539 families that live in the area. About 53.9% of families are married couples. "The ages of the town is 21.8% of population which is under the age of 18, 8.9% is age 18 to 24, 27.8% is 25 to 44, 25.1% is 45to 64 and 16.3% is over the age of 65 or older. The median income for a household is $51,817 to $62,649. The racial make up of town is 90.55% white, 3.96% African American, .15% Native American."
Saratoga County has 812 square miles of land with a population of 200,635 residents accruing to the 200 census. "There are 78,165 households in Saratoga and about 86,701 housing units. Thirty-three percent of the residents are children under the age of 18. The county race is 95.98% whites, 1.36% African American, 1.04% Asian."
Mohawk Valley is upstate New York area that surrounds the Mohawk River. It is about 5,882 square miles. "The Mohawk Valley includes Schenectady, Montgomery, Fulton, Herkimer and Oneida Counties." New York State has the third largest population in the United State as of 2006 censuses Bureau 19,302,183.
Company Analysis
Taft Furniture has five core values that they try to convey to their employees and their customers. The first core value is Honesty. Be honest to the customers and to your fellow co-workers.
The second core value is communication. The communication stands for training and follow-up. You want to train new employees correctly so that they would be able to complete their task and work with their other co-workers. You would also want them to be able to help the customer and satisfy their situation. In addition to training, you also want the employee to be able to follow-up on a task or situation that they directed to another person who is able to please the customer.
The third core vale is professionalism. In professionalism, Taft wants you to focus on three main aspects: respect, care, courtesy, by treating the customer with these three characteristics you will help build up the company's reputation. When that happens people will want to keep coming back and shop at Taft because they will remember how they were treated the first time. They will also recommend their experience that they had with Taft to their friends, family and co-workers that are in the market to refurnish their home. The fourth core value is Customer satisfaction and Conveniences. You want to make sure everything that you are able to is going to work into the customer's schedule you do not want to complicate things even more for the working force. Keep everything simple for them. They do this by offering the customer pick-up or delivery, delivering on the weekends and follow-up with the customer after they have received their furniture. The last core value is Profitability; you want to control expenses and increase efficiency.
Customer Analysis Taft's customers are "life blood of their business." They need their employees to treat the customer with respect at all times working with the customer whether it is on the phone or in person. You never conducted yourself as disorganized. You want to make the customer feel that they have your undivided attention and that you will do anything to help them. "You do not want to argue or match wits. They are human beings with feelings and emotions like our own and should be treated according." Taft guarantees many things for their customer. They guarantee delivery in three days or less when the items are in stock. They also have a price guarantee that if you come back to the store and your item has gone on sale or there is a cash discount you are allow to receive your money back. Also at Taft, they do not hassle you; they want you to shop and take your time. Their philosophy is that we will meet and greet you and then when you are ready or have any questions we will be happy to assist you.
Market- Product Focus
Marking and Product Objective Taft's main goal is to attract customers into the store. They want people to come in and buy their products. They will advertise their express bedding in order get the people to come into the store and buy their mattress rather than a competitor's. They also want to get their name out there by doing that they are constantly advertising. Their objective is to sell as much product as possible. They need to sell themselves in order to people trust them and come into store.
Target Market Taft Furniture's target audience is females between the age of twenty-nine and forty-nine. Everyone in today society is waiting longer and longer before they get married and this is the same age that people are looking to settle down and start a family. This is the time they move out of the apartments with hand me down furniture and buy their own. Taft does not target their attention to men because most of the people buying the furniture are couples and males really do not take into consideration all the choices of fabric and colors like the target audience at Taft. As shown in the Regional Analysis about Colonie where Taft's largest showroom is that amount 53% of the residents in the town are married couples and about 52.9% of the residents are the age range they are trying to reach out too. Taft's location is places them in perfect advantage point to reach their target audience.
Point of Difference Taft wants to make a difference to their customers; they want their products and services to stand out from others. Taft does promote their products and services just as much. "Hey it's the big store Taft! The biggest selection of the best priced furniture in the State." They sell that perfect family image. They have pictures of couples together along with kids running through their home page enjoy the comfort of their new furniture. They want to connect with their target audience and show what is most important to them, sharing time with their family.
They also play on your ego and needs. You are having the family over for the holidays they want to promote that and take away some insecurity. "Decorate your home for holidays with new furniture and beautiful decorative home accessories from Taft!" This shows that their product will be the best to fit in your home for the holidays. We want to appeal to them what can we do for them. As well as selling their product, Taft wants to sell its services. The major service that they try to sell is their delivery. They can have your order there in three days or less or the fact that you can express bedding and have it shipped the next day. The faster you can get it to me (the customer) the better. They also help you with the planning. You can do it right on-line, measure your room and the size of the furniture that will fit in the room as well. You are able to do it online and save you some time. If you are unsure about design and colors, the sales people are willing to help you.
Marketing Program
Product Strategy The production of receiving the furniture is a process. Before Taft can even keep the merchandise in stock the have the purchasers and buyers meet with the different companies that they go through. They find out what the latest trends are and what their target market is looking to purchase. They do some background research before the purchase any of the furniture. After they place the order to the manufacturers, the manufacturers then have to make the product. Next, the product is made and they have to find out when they are available to arrive in the Colonie area and make sure that Taft's receiving department is able to unload the trucks and move it into the warehouse and that there is room to store the product. After the truck arrives in the receiving department they will unload the trucks and place the merchandise in the warehouse. When the new product comes in it has to be logged and put into the system. This way they can make sure they received everything they ordered as well as being able to know what is in stock for when the customer decides to purchase it. If it is back ordered the product it is put on a list which a person in another department will have to call the customer to let them know that their product has arrived and is ready to be picked up or make an appointment for delivery.
To keep the showroom looking different, buyers go around the warehouse and the showroom and switch styles in and out constantly. Everyday they bring new merchandise for the customers to see something different. After the product is out on the showroom you have to wait until the customer picks it out. When a customer walks into the store they are greeted by a sales person. That sales person will stay with that one customer until they leave the store. The customer can go to that sales person and ask them any types of questions they may have about purchasing the merchandise. After the customer decides what they want, the sales person will right up their sale check and make sure it is in stock. They also ask the customer whether or not they want to pick it up or have it delivered. Once the sales person has written everything up they will then bring the customer to the front counter to be cashed out. The customer has a choice to make when coming to the counter; they can either pay by cash, check, charge or financing. If they choose financing, they are going to have to wait around for about another ten to fifteen minutes to fill-out and have run their credit application. Once that is completed the customer has to sign the receipt for the payment in full. They have to sign another sheet of paper that states the story's polices. Now if they did finance there is additional paperwork that they would have to sign which will be sent to the bank. Also, if they have it scheduled for delivery the customer will have to be read our policies and sign a document for it. If the customer decides to pickup the merchandise they are able to do immediately as long as the product is in stock. The pick-up dock will then get a print out of the items as well as product location in the warehouse to be pulled for the customer. Once the items are pulled and the customer comes in the loading area, employees will load their vehicle up with the merchandise. The product strategy will end there for the customer if they pick-up. If the customer decides they want it delivered the process continues. First the customer has to set-up a delivery date in which we go to the delivery area and select a time that is convenient for them. Once a delivery is scheduled the delivery manager will map the route of the truck about two days before the delivery. This route is constantly updated and changed as new customers are added to the delivery date. The definite time for delivery is not known until the day of when no more items are added to the delivery. Then two days before the delivery the customer will receive a conformation call to make sure we have the correct address and phone number for the day of delivery. On that same day their merchandise will be pulled. The day before the delivery, the merchandise will be hand checked and then placed in line to be loaded the next day on to the truck. On the day of the delivery the delivery drivers will load the trucks up and double check the furniture before it is loaded onto the truck. After the truck is fully loaded the delivery drivers will call all the customers to notify them of their time of delivery. That day the customer will sign off that they received their furniture in perfect condition. After that all paper work that the customer has signed will be placed in the filing cabinet in case needed at a further time.
Price Strategy For every major sale, Taft has the come out with many advertisements. They spend a lot of money putting out commercials, radio commercials, and print ads. They major sales that they try to draw everyone into is their midnight sales. This is when the store is closed all day until about four o'clock p.m. when they open the doors and stay open until midnight. They pull out many clearance pieces and over stock the showroom because they know that they will draw in lots of customers. They even keep the pick-up area open to about 11 p.m. so people can still pick- up on the same day. Another sale that they have is remodel sales when they are working an area in the showroom. Also, holiday sales: Christmas, New Years, Labor Day, Fourth of July and lots more. Taft Furniture uses many other appeals to their target audience to help build their name. They always host an earth day, people are allow to drop off their electronics at Taft's parking lot hoping it will draw some people in. Last spring, they let the show Extreme MakeOver, ABC new hit show; use their parking lot in order to transport all the volunteers and workers to help remodel a house. They also donated furniture to decorate the house as well. Taft's logo was all over the show.
Other ways that Taft tries to get people into the store is that they will have drawings to give away furniture. The prices will be from 15,000 dollars to 20,000 dollars and you do not have to make a purchase. They use the entries forms to put you on their e-mailing list to send you advertisements. Also, when they had their grand opening of the new store they raffled off a brand new car. Many people came in to enter for the new car.
Promotion Strategy When you apply for any of Taft's give a ways, they have an employee go through them and write down all the e-mail addresses to create an e-mail listing. Then when they have a new sales or special offer they will send you on e-mail hoping for another way to advertise. Other offer Taft has is their four year or six year interest free financing; this usually gets people into their store. They put a time limit on only good for tonight or weekend. "So you better come in while it last." This gets people into wanting to spend more money in your store because they have so long to pay it off. Also, apart of the promotion strategy is that when a salesman approaches you they will hand you a flier with all the promotions and discounts that you will be able to receive if you purchase today. Then while you look through the store all of the sales tickets have the name of the sale and say that it's a huge savings.
Place Strategy Taft has two major store located in different areas. They do this to capture different regions of people. They are trying to expand and become more convenient to the consumers. The largest showroom and warehouse is located on Central Avenue also know as route 5 in Colonie, New York. This is a major road that goes through Albany County and Schenectady County (two largest counties in the area) this makes it easy access for consumers to get into their store.
The second location is in Saratoga Springs, New York which is in Saratoga County. This is also located on a major road called route 50. This is the third largest county in the capital region targeting a bigger audience and reaching out to a different group of people.
Appendix A
Taft Furniture advertises to all the major cable networking channels in Capital Region. They pay one price to be aired all many different channels. When they have a sale, they ask to receive more air time and pay additional as well. They also do the same for radio stations to air their commercials. However, Taft has a special connection with WGNA and its a country radio station in the Albany area. If you check out WGNA, they have Taft's logo right on the front page. This connection is unsure. Taft also uses WGNA's website for their promotions. It is interactive and easy for the people to gather their information. They also use e-mail to send people information about their sales.
Employee Handbook. Albany: Taft Furniture, 1990. Pg.2 Employee Handbook pg.5 Employee Handbook pg.6 Staff. "Beyond the Top 100; a Listing of Large, Independently Owned and Operated Stores." Furniture Today 25 Dec. 2006: 69. Lexis Nexis. EBSCO. Milne Liberary At SUNY Oneonta, Albany. 27 Oct. 2007. Employee Handbook Employee Handbook Dobson, Dave. Personal interview. 26 Oct. 2007. Staff Staff Dobson "Taft Furniture." Taft Furniture. 2007. 13 Nov. 2007 . Dobson Dobson Dobson "Capital District." Wikipedia. 18 Oct. 2007. 13 Nov. 2007 . Capital District "Colonie, New York." Wikipedia. 10 Nov. 2007. 13 Nov. 2007 .
Colonie Colonie Colonie Colonie "Saratoga County, New York." Wikipedia. 11 Nov. 2007. 13 Nov. 2007 . Saratoga "Mohawk Valley." Wikipedia. 3 Nov. 2007. 13 Nov. 2007 . Mohawk Valley Mohawk Valley Handbook pg.1 Handbook pg.1 Handbook pg.1 Handbook pg.1 Handbook pg.1 Handbook pg.6 Handbook pg.6 Handbook pg.6 " Taft Furniture Taft Furniture Vogel, Ray. Personal interview. 26 Oct. 2007. Taft Furniture Taft Furniture Vogel