RTG to play ball with NFL
Football-themed kids line due in ’08
-- Kids Today, 10/12/2007 11:12:00 AM
Clint Engel -- Furniture Today
The Seffner, Fla.-based Top 100 company has struck a deal with the National Football League for a licensed line of kids furniture that will be offered in its Rooms To Go Kids & Teens stores, as well as wholesaled to other retailers.
RTG will start with two collections that it plans to have out by late next summer, in time for the 2008 football season, said Jeff Seaman, CEO of the chain of 120 stores, including about 40 attached and stand-alone Kids & Teens unit. The line probably will be produced by RTG’s Asian sources, he said, and distributed by Canyon Furniture to non-competing retailers, similar to RTG’s Disney furniture line.
Canyon is part-owned by the Seaman family.
The NFL goods are the third licensed line by the nation’s No. 2 furniture store chain, a retail pioneer in developing licensed lines itself rather than going through a manufacturer.
Seaman would not disclose the terms of the NFL deal, saying only that it was “really expensive. We have to sell a lot of product and make it up in volume.”
The company’s other two licensed lines — Disney in the Kids & Teens stores and Cindy Crawford Home — have been huge hits, with Crawford doing more than $100 a year annually at RTG. Crawford is expected to do more than $250 million in 2008, when combined with other retailers now selling it, he said.
The Disney collection will do more than $25 million for RTG. With NFL, he said, “We hope to do at least what Disney does.”
Rooms To Go ended last year with 116 stores and an estimated $1.76 billion in sales.
Seaman said one exciting feature of the NFL line will be the ability for kids to customize. “So if they live in Atlanta and one wants an Atlanta Falcons bedroom, (he can have that),” he said. “But if the brother hates the Falcons and likes the Miami Dolphins, they can do a Dolphins version.”
He would not elaborate further on details of the line.
“I think its going to be very successful with boys,” Seaman said, adding that it will round out an already strong boys youth assortment in the Kids store.
He said that the NFL line should do well nationally.
RTG will continue its aggressive push for youth business in the next few years, both at its stores and in wholesaling through its sourcing partnerships, he said. Most of the new RTG main stores opening in the next few years will include an attached Kids & Teens showroom, something the company has been doing more often at new sites, including those in Houston, Seaman said. He added that RTG’s Kids volume is growing faster than RTG’s regular business, partly because of this expansion.
We would love your feedback!
-
Hurwitz Mintz survives and succeeds
Oct 1, 2007 -
Family businesses in the juvenile industry
Aug 1, 2007
Featured Company
-
FurnitureCore.com
FurnitureCore.com is a dynamic web application aimed at the furniture industry. Retailers and manufacturers alike will find our deep reserve of tools to be exactly what their furniture business needs.www.furniturecore.com... more
