La-Z-Boy Invests in Key Strategies to Improve Customer Experience

La-Z-Boy officials hope that their company investments will pay off in an improved customer experience.

During the company’s Aug. 20 financial results call for its fiscal 2015 first quarter, La-Z-Boy Chairman, President, and CEO Kurt Darrow discussed several key investments for the company which include opening new stores, a core part of its 4-4-5 strategy, additional advertising to drive sales and further increase market share, and investments in technology.

“We are also investing in a new website and ecommerce technology platform, which we believe will greatly enhance the consumer experience on our desktop and mobile sites,” Darrow said in a Seeking Alpha transcript of the conference call. “It will enable consumers to more easily discover and learn about our products, as well as make the online purchase process much more simple and seamless. Our team remained focused on the steady execution of strategic initiatives to deliver growth throughout the enterprise, while leveraging the power of our brand, our distribution network, and the lean operating structure to fuel profitability.”

La-Z-Boy’s first quarter results included a 7% rise in consolidated sales and a 12% increase in operating income.

“As I mentioned earlier, we are investing in various platforms across the company to not only drive growth but to build our overall infrastructure to improve efficiencies,” Darrow added. “With respect to advertising, the Live Life Comfortably campaign continues to deliver results. We are undoubtedly seeing an expanded base of consumers migrating to our brand as they become aware that we offer a wide array of stylish and on trend furniture.”

The company added new commercials during the quarter.

“While too early to quantify the success of the collection, we believe that will be an important element in our brand repositioning as we seek to expand our consumer base with younger individuals and those who are interested in more than core recliner offering,” Darrow explained.

Darrow said that a crucial component to the company’s long-term growth plan is building out the La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network through its 4-4-5 store build strategy.

“For those of who knew our story, 4-4-5 reflects our objective to grow our store base throughout North America to 400 stores, averaging $4 million each in revenue over a five-year time period,” he explained. “We are in year two of the program and plan to have it completed at the end of fiscal 2018. For fiscal 2015, we have an ambitious plan of 30 to 35 store projects, which includes new stores, remodels and relocations, and believe if things stay on schedule, we will end the year with the 12 net new stores.”

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