The unique challenge of the office furniture business
Hayworth describes the unique challenge of the office furniture business. This challenge, and what differentiates the office furniture business from the home furniture business, is the speed at which clients demand their orders.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with David R. Hayworth, February 6, 1997. Interview I-0099. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
In those days, it was strictly sold to the dealers, and
the better dealer network you had throughout the United
States—we had, you know, from the east coast to the west
coast, and from that point in time we maintained warehouses in San
Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle.
- DOROTHY GAY DARR:
-
This was in the '50s?
- DAVID R. HAYWORTH:
-
Uh-hmm. And we shipped carloads of furniture out to the warehouses for
distribution in the western states. We did not have a warehouse in
Dallas at that point in time—where Katharine and Dave
lived—but we later did, some years later we did; not only a
warehouse, but a showroom in Dallas. And then in later years we had a
showroom in San Francisco and Los Angeles and Seattle. That was the only
way you could compete in the west, was to have ready availability to
furnish the needs of the office furniture dealers and their customers,
the manufacturers. In those days if you had an order, you shipped it. I
mean, if it's a big job and they needed furniture, it
isn't like a household where a housewife orders a sofa and
she waits six months for it; the office furniture business was totally
different. When a building's being built and they need the
furniture for their offices, it's got to be there on the day
that office opens or before the day it opens or you can forget it.
That's the way the office furniture business differs so
radically from the household furniture manufacturers. And I think
that's one reason that household furniture manufacturers,
when they tried to go into the office furniture business they would
without exception fail. And these were some big people too; big
furniture manufacturers who tried this because they thought it was a
supplement to their operation. But they didn't understand the
principles. You think furniture is furniture and it works both ways; it
does not, absolutely does not.
- DOROTHY GAY DARR:
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And these showrooms that you had were for the dealers to come by and
look at your furniture?
- DAVID R. HAYWORTH:
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Well, you see, at that time—you talk about the period of the
'50s—that was not so important, the showrooms. It
later became when your customer was the manufacturer and you would call
on—like we had contracts with, for example, Merrill Lynch,
Nations Bank, which was NCNB in those days—you know, big
banks and, financial institutions. They were our big market. And if you
were trying to sell Merrill Lynch and you wanted a national contract,
they wanted to see your furniture. Well, they might come to High Point,
but if they would just go to the showroom right there in New York which
we always had in later years—we had a warehouse in the
beginning and then added a showroom—but you could bring them
right in. And if there was a special desk that they wanted, you could
have that shipped up there so it was right there for them to examine to
their heart's content, or shipped to their office for them to
use until they made a decision. That's when the office
furniture business was becoming more and more competitive. We still had
a lock on the market in the '40s and '50s and
'60s. We were the largest manufacturer of office furniture in
the United States, but a lot of people began to see that it was a very
money-making venture, and so that's when a lot of other
manufacturers began to make office furniture. And it became more and
more competitive.
- DOROTHY GAY DARR:
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So beginning in the '60s and '70s.
- DAVID R. HAYWORTH:
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Well, more in the '70s, and then in the '80s it
really got hot; late '60s, '70s and
'80s. When I said, make one exception—you know,
there's always exceptions to everything—but
anyway, there was one manufacturer of television cabinets and pianos
which you will readily recognize, which was Kimball
out in Indiana. The television business was beginning to slow down, the
television cabinet business, and probably very competitive because
somebody could always make a cabinet cheaper. You know, how that
goes—they had a lot of empty factories sitting around, and
somehow they got the idea to try to make office furniture. So the first
thing they did was to buy a sample of every single desk that Alma Desk
Company made and copy it down to the nth degree. If you ever want to go
into something, copy somebody who's made a success, right?
And that's exactly what they did, and of course, when they
got going they—it took them several years, you know, to get
revved up—and they were trying to sell just under us, you
see, until they got a toe hold in the market, then they'd
raise their prices up. They were very successful and they're
still in business, though they're a publicly-owned company
and they never break out their individual sales—like their
office furniture division is so many million and so and so and so. They
still make pianos, you know, and television cabinets, but
anyway—and they make household furniture. Now, this is the
one exception, and they make a more modest line of
household—nothing like Baker, for example, not that price
range. But Kimball was very successful; has been and continues to be in
the office furniture market. Has done exceedingly well.