Furniture king Jake Jabs has seen the future, and it is self-service.
The white-haired founder and television pitchman for American Furniture Warehouse says he’s launching a new store design that will allow customers to pull their own items from store shelves rather than waiting for them to be brought from the warehouse.
“People want more self-service – like Sam’s Club where you go in, walk around, put it on a cart and take it to the front,” said Jabs.
Jabs will open new stores in Westminster and Firestone to test the idea. The first floor of each new store will stock so-called flat-packed, ready-to-assemble furniture and portable items like end tables, lamps, office furniture that customers can cart out on their own. Small recliners and couches will also be included in the mix Jabs said.
The second-level of each store will keep with the company’s traditional showroom format.
By allowing customers to haul their own items, Jabs says he can cut labor costs and pass the savings on.
Although he makes frequent comparisons to warehouse stores Sam’s Club and Costco when describing the new concept, Jabs calls the new format his “IKEA store,” so-named for the vaunted Swedish retailer that pioneered flat-packaged furniture to allow its customers to take items home in their cars.
IKEA stores include sizeable self-service areas where customers use coded tags to locate the merchandise they want and haul it out themselves.
“It’s really a more immediate gratification thing,” said Jo Fleischer, senior editor for InFurniture magazine. “People will see something – maybe a small desk or a nightstand – that they didn’t plan on buying, and they can take it with them immediately.”
Jabs move toward self-service reflects a shift in the industry that has traditional furniture retailers suddenly competing with big-box giants, according to Fleischer.
“There is a growing consciousness in the furniture industry that stores like Costco, Wal-Mart and Target are taking more and more of the furniture pie. People are going to react to that in different ways,” he said. “Jake is unique, too, in the sense that he’s concerned with the type of furniture Hobby Lobby is selling as well as what Kacey (Fine Furniture) is selling. He wants to appeal to every one of those customers.”
If the concept flies, future American Furniture stores will follow the format, although Jabs said he does not intend to convert existing stores to the model because of the costs involved.
Jabs, whose American Furniture Warehouse stores did $311 million in sales last year, has developed a reputation as an innovator since his early days in the business when he started importing furniture and selling it for lower prices than his competitors.
“Jake is one of the most creative guys in the industry,” said industry analyst Wallace “Jerry” Epperson Jr. of Mann Armistead & Epperson Ltd. in Richmond, Va. “Whether he’s in China looking for new supplier that nobody is using or using new ways of retailing, he is always on the cutting edge.”
Jabs’ Westminster store will open early next year in the former Homestead House location at 9410 Wadsworth Parkway.
Jabs purchased three homestead House stores earlier this year in a real estate deal worth $16.85 million. He’s since converted the Homestead House at 8281 S. University Blvd. in Centennial to an American Furniture showroom and sold the Fort Collins Store at 2700 S. College Ave. to The O’Connor Group of Boulder.
Jabs will close an existing American Furniture Warehouse at 9979 Wadsworth Parkway in Westminster when the new store is completed in about three months. The Firestone store – which at 510,000 square feet will be the second-largest in the American Furniture Warehouse empire – is expected to open in August.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-820-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
