Furniture store

“ Inner-store displays.—The theme is "Fine floor coverings are a necessity in the home of today." Every one of the model rooms features as an integral part of the furnishings a fine rug. The same holds true in the "Smaller home groupings." These rugs are not placed on the floor and forgotten. The furniture salesmen call attention to them daily. The carpet salesmen from time to time make use of these groupings as selling aids.
4. Trained salespersons.—New merchandise is sold first to the salespersons. They are taught also that "truth" is the most powerful selling argument. ”

“ This same style may be used for any room in the house, and there are beautiful reproductions of Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton furniture that are appropriate for any need.
In choosing new "old" furniture, do not buy any that has a bright and hideous finish. The great cabinet-makers and their followers used wax, or oil, and rubbed, rubbed, rubbed. This dull finish is imitated, but not equaled, by all good furniture makers, and the bright finish simply proclaims the cheap department store. ”

“ This is so much the case that clever salesmen and decorators frequently try to get the man involved even in the earlier stages of a large sale, while many highly successful oriental-rug men make no serious effort on a sale of any importance until the man is actively interested.
Accurate percentages impossible.—Such data as we have indicate that, in the purchase by average-income families of the kinds of merchandise carried by furniture stores, 5 percent or less of the buying is done by men alone, 50 percent or more by women alone, and the remaining 40 percent by men and women together. ”

“ There are two accepted methods of dealing at old furniture shops. The first is to approach them, well-groomed, be-ringed and perfumed, smoking a jewelled gasper and entering the shop with a circular movement of the arm to expose the gold wrist-watch that will crawl up the sleeve at wrong moments, and to ask in a commanding voice, "How much is the—ah—oak-dresser—what?" ”

“ A spick-and-span new furniture and upholstery establishment has no more fascination for me than a black-and-white undertaker’s. But out of the bustle of the street and the broiling heat of the mid-day sun—which is my favourite time of indulgence—and in the dusty and shadowy corners, festooned with cobwebs, of a broker’s shop or old furniture saleroom, I forget how the time goes, as I join over again the sundered human relationships to the pieces of furniture at which I stand staring in half-reverie. ”

“ In departments using rug racks, often it is necessary to remove a rug and show it on the floor before the sale can be closed. If we do this in a way that permits the piece to fall in a wrinkled heap on the floor we will not damage the rug, but we will hurt the buyer's opinion of it. A shrewd salesman will ask his customer to walk on the rug; but he will not walk on it himself.
The same care applies to showing furniture. It is folly to jerk a drawer violently, or pound a table or dresser top, or thump the seat of an easy chair, or sit on the arm of a sofa. ”

“ The important matter is to learn promptly enough about her room to enable you to link some of its characteristics with the characteristics of your merchandise, so that as you point out the many desirable features of her room, and the perfect way in which your furniture harmonizes with and emphasizes these features, she is brought to the conviction that she should have the room just as you have pictured it, and therefore must have your furniture, without regard to what other stores may have to offer. ”

“ Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton.—A word in passing may be said in regard to the unique character of furniture of these types. It is obvious that factory-made furniture turned out by the hundred pieces can offer nothing personal, whatever its merits 222 or demerits of design or workmanship. It is this personal note, the love of a craftsman in his creation, that appeals to the collector, whether it be of Persian rugs or of old brass candlesticks. It is absent in art produced in a wholesale manner. ”

“ This bulletin presents at once opportunity and challenge to those who sell home furnishings:
Opportunity to those who see furniture as a symbol of achievement and distinction. These hear the call to bring beauty out of drab surroundings, and to shape the visible garments of life, and even life itself, making it finer, richer, and a thing of greater worth. ”

“ Fashion ever has been a keynote in the purchase of home furnishings. The key, however, still remains in the custody of the owner. When she intends to buy a new gown, coat, or hat, she reads magazines and newspapers, shops around, studies styles and trends, thinks of uses and requirements for the gowns or coats under consideration. Probably she needs to understand that she may use as much conscious discrimination with furniture as with coats if only she will use the same sources of inspiration and information. She should try any one or all of these ”

“ Whether the "art of furnishing" or the desire to have what people require for use in their houses more becoming and beautiful, be a rising influence or not, it is certain that the "fancy" or ornamental furniture trade is of large and increasing importance, corresponding to the increased size and cost of modern London and country houses, compared with those built during the reigns of William III. and George IV. Every tradesman who has the pretension to repair chimney-pots, to whitewash, or paint house-fronts, ceilings, or offices, writes up the word "decorator," on his shop-front. ”

“ Mahogany and horsehair chairs and sofas are rapidly approaching that age limit beyond which they will certainly become interesting, and one can see in imagination the advertisements of the second-hand dealers who will describe them as “genuinely old.” In that day many an old commercial room will be made to yield up its treasures to the insatiable greed of collectors. It is not uncommon, however, to find odd pieces of eighteenth-century furniture in the travellers’ room to-day. ”

“ The silk factories at Lyons were no longer as well patronized as they had been, and to revive interest in them new furniture was ordered for the queen, to be upholstered in brocade, and with curtains and hangings to match. Everything in these rooms breathes of dainty elegance,—the carvings of the mantelpiece, the walls decorated with garlands of flowers and Cupids, even the metal mounts, chiselled wreaths and rosettes, were wrought with the beauty and finish of goldsmith's work. ”

“ In addition it should be noted that it is practically impossible to suggest the proper choice of hall furnishings in the absence of measured drawings, since both the number of pieces and their size are more definitely determined by floor and wall space than is the case in any other room. Every sale of hall furniture of any importance should be followed by a call at the house as soon after delivery as possible. If the new furniture does not fit the room, corrections may be made promptly, before any ill-will develops. ”

“ There is no sound artistic or practical objection to the use of pieces from different suites in the same room; provided, of course, that the resemblances in proportion, line, and coloring are sufficiently marked to ensure harmony. This is the only way in which antiques can be used, and it is no less effective with modern pieces. This point is particularly important in the sale of furniture for a child's room or a small guest room, which will not take a full suite in any case, but which will offer a valuable opportunity to sell broken lots. ”

“ The houses of the wealthy were furnished with great magnificence and luxuriousness in a gaudy and ultra-decorative fashion. Restraint is the last quality to be found. Judging however from the many simple and charming specimens of walnut furniture surviving, the standard of comfort and good taste amongst the middle classes was high. Table glass was now manufactured in England; carpets were made at Kidderminster; chairs grew to be comfortably shaped; domestic conveniences in the way of chests of drawers, writing bureaux, and mirrors were all in general use in many middle-class houses. ”

“ Moreover, there are multitudes of homemakers who know little or nothing about this comfortable modern trend in bedroom decoration, and still consider that the only furniture essential or desirable is a 3-, 4-, or 5-piece suite and a slipper chair or two. Many of our old customers, who now regard their bedrooms as completely furnished, can be interested in the purchase of additional new merchandise by persistent educational and development work. ”

“ In some instances, as, e.g., in that of the famous Pomeranian cabinet, in the Kunst Kammer in Berlin, a long list has been preserved of artists and craftsmen of note in their day, who combined to produce monumental examples of actual room furniture.
It cannot be denied that though great pains are taken and much expense is incurred in modern furnishing, the habits of the day lead rather to the search for comfort than for grace or beauty ”

“ Undoubtedly they who sell furniture know too little about the furniture woods, talk too little about them, make far too little use of their powerful appeal to the eye and the emotions. If they can learn to know them intimately, and to regard them, not as merchandise merely, but as something fine and nobly beautiful, they cannot fail to inspire widespread admiration and desire for ownership. ”

“ Moreover, they also will be harmonious because the fine lines and slender proportions of the bed affect the mind with a sense of delicacy and daintiness, and the fine texture, silken luster, and pale coloring of the taffeta affect it in precisely the same way. We can call the first type of harmony physical, and the second type emotional. Both are basically important in the art of interior decoration, and make surprisingly powerful sales levers in dealing with that 60 percent of potential buyers whose primary interest in furniture lies in what it will do to make their homes more attractive. ”

“ When such buyers fall into the hands of a skillful salesperson, price (within their economic limits) becomes a matter wholly of secondary importance, and competitive shopping is forgotten. Selling from this approach becomes largely a matter of giving studied expression to the decorative motif chosen for the room. If it is daintiness—furniture, walls, floor covering, draperies, and accessories must be selected and arranged to concur in creating an effect of daintiness. ”

“ On the arrival of our eighty cases in London, they were received by the warehouse people, who sheltered them until the brand-new English house was ready, which was not for a year. The packing, sending, and storing of all this furniture was under one hundred pounds, which, with my English experience, I knew would have bought nothing. I did question the wisdom of bringing carpets, and I do not think it pays unless they are very good and large—the remaking and cleaning cost too much to waste on anything not very good. ”

“ In most houses the decorative importance of the hall is undervalued and the room itself is underfurnished and far less inviting and attractive than it could and should be. In order to expand sales of hall furniture by the suggestion and sale of related merchandise, or by influencing home owners to refurnish, you will require some knowledge of the individual rooms and their present furnishings, and a fair knowledge of the principles, processes, and materials involved in hall decoration. ”

“ In selling home furnishings, the hidden value revealed by touching the piece under consideration is extremely important. Fine furniture which has been hand rubbed has a luxurious feeling which is as soft as satin. Only by rubbing your fingers over a lovely finish can you appreciate, to the fullest extent, the exquisite fineness of a hand-rubbed finish. ”

“ These are some of the best known manufacturers of the first half of the present century, and though until after the Great Exhibition there was, as a rule, little in the designs to render their productions remarkable, the work of those named will be found sound in construction, and free from the faults which accompany the cheap and showy reproductions of more pretentious styles, which mark so much of the furniture of the present day. ”

“ Rush-and flag-bottomed chairs and chairs with seats of twisted rawhide—the frames often gilded and painted— sometimes took the place of wrought mahogany, except in the best rooms of great houses. Many of these are of excellent shape and construction, and specially interesting as an adaptation of natural products of the country. Undoubtedly, with our ingenious modern appliances, we could make as good furniture as was made in Chippendale and Sheraton's day, with far less expenditure of effort; but the demon of competition in trade will not allow it. We must use all material, perfect or imperfect ”

“ I wanted to know whether the improvement in furniture sprang from popular demand or whether it had been in some measure forced upon the public by the manufacturers.
Mr. Gay told me that the change was something which originated with the people. "We have always wanted to make beautiful furniture," he said, "and we have helped all we could, but a manufacturer of furniture cannot force either good taste or bad taste upon those who buy. He has to offer them what they are willing to take, for they will not buy anything else. ”