Office furniture sets up a superstore faceoff

Steelcase, Hon and Herman Miller are the ’go-to’s for Fortune 500 companies in the market for new office furniture. But the situation for the majority of the nation’s small businesses and home office consumers is decidedly different.

That explains why leading office super-store chains have identified the office furniture category as an area of opportunity to grow sales through a combination of licensing agreements, designer deals and celebrity endorsements that bring some brand energy to a category where mass-market products lacked brand cachet. Office Depot was the first to recognize the potential of bringing designer appeal to the category when the company cast its lot with designer Christopher Lowell in late 2003. The line of furniture that bore his name became the most successful new product launch in Office Depot’s history and opened its eyes to the potential of introducing proprietary brands in other categories. The Lowell brand was extended to accessory categories and now the designer is working on upgrading elements of the furniture line to introduce designs that fit today’s mobile home office users.

Office Depot may have been the first to bring the concept of brand consciousness to the category, but in the office superstore space, a competitive response is never far off. In the case of furniture, OfficeMax this year entered into a licensing deal with The Sharper Image for a line of furniture and related product that are intended to capture the excitement and innovative spirit associated with the Sharper Image name. Products such as furniture, chairs, shredders, desk sets and accessories are expected to arrive in stores throughout the course of this year. So, too, are office chairs bearing the Broyhill name as OfficeMax also signed an exclusive deal with the furniture manufacturer.

Staples made the biggest splash in the category most recently when it inked a deal with The Donald to put the Trump name on an assortment of five executive chairs. Trump and Staples chairman and ceo Ron Sargent participated in an event earlier this month in New York to kick off the launch of Trump Office for Staples.

The deal isn’t Staples’ first association with Trump. The retailer received national exposure in early 2005 when a segment of Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice” featured a competition among teams of contestants to design products for the retailer. Staples executives picked the winning design and then sold the organization product called “The Desk Apprentice,” in stores nationwide.

Trump’s chairs, as would be expected, are on the pricy side for a mass market retailer, ranging in price from $349 to $549, but they are high-quality, as is much of the furniture now available for home and small office use.