Interview with Jessica Salisbury, Village Green Home and Garden
The roughly 100,000 square feet of showroom space, Village Green Home and
garden is a casual furniture destination like no other.
Furniture World interviewed Jessica Salisbury, CEO and Creative Director at
Village Green Home and Garden, located in Rockford, Illinois. With over
100,000 square feet of patio furniture on display, the store pulls customers
from a wide geographic area from Chicagoland to southern Wisconsin. Its
Riverside location sits on 10 acres that include a greenhouse and garden
center.
A Unique Showroom
“Our main showroom,” Salisbury said, “is a big glass greenhouse atrium.
Aesthetically and architecturally, the structure reflects the nature of our
casual furniture business. Furniture is arranged in vignettes with brick
walkways and natural light settings so shoppers can gauge how their
furnishings will look in their homes.”
Furniture World readers may wonder how such a structure is shoppable during
the cold Illinois winter months. “To heat this space is a bit like ripping
money up and throwing it away,” she observed. “In the wintertime it is cool,
and it can get extraordinarily hot in August, but the roof and greenhouse
doors open up for airflow. Our customers understand this and don’t mind.
It’s an outdoor experience well suited for outdoor home furnishings.”
History
Salisbury started working for Village Green in 1999 when she was still in
high school. “I was super naive, and really just a kid, hired by Larry
Smith’s sister Sue,” she recalled. “Sue and I just clicked. I was especially
close to Larry Smith as well, the founder of Village Green who passed away
in 2020. They were my first meaningful business mentors. Larry, Sue and
Larry’s daughters Carolyn and Cynthia, who now own the business, saw
something in me that I hadn’t yet seen in myself.”
When Salisbury joined the company there were three stores. “These included a
tiny thumbprint of a store that sold garden items and plants as well as a
garden center and greenhouse we still operate. Larry Smith, a great
entrepreneur, then purchased a large parcel of land where our main outdoor
store is now located. He decided to get into the casual furniture business
in the ‘80s selling Redwood and wrought iron furniture.”
“In the wintertime it is cool, and it can get extraordinarily hot in August,
but the roof and greenhouse doors open up for airflow. Our customers
understand this and don’t mind.”
Market Served
“Today, Chicago is a lucrative market for us. We’ve expanded our customer
base outward to some affluent communities.
“If shoppers can’t find what they are looking for at Village Green, I
question whether they’ll be able to find it almost anywhere. A downside of
having such a large store is that our selection can sometimes be
overwhelming for customers. The upside is that its size makes Village Green
a destination. Many people drive an hour or more to get to the store and
then invest a significant amount of time shopping for furniture and plants.”
In addition to outdoor furniture items that account for about 50 percent of
Village Green’s sales, the store also carries a selection of indoor
furniture. “This winter we remodeled and re-branded our interior furniture
department as VG Home,” said Salisbury. “It’s more design focused now with
the addition of a design center and expanded custom order capability.”
Selection
Price-points of Village Green’s outdoor furniture range from medium to high.
“Polywood, for example, starts around $2,000 for a dining set. Our most
expensive sets go up into the $12,000 range but mid-level furnishings are
our sweet spot for sure.”
Personnel
Salisbury told Furniture World that all of her outdoor furniture sales
associates are certified furniture specialists. “They are well trained in
the world of outdoor. As a casual furniture retailer we make sure our
salespeople dress casually as well. They wear VG t-shirts or polos and
shorts—very friendly and homey.
“What really sets us apart is our sales staff who take good care of
customers, and are glad to do any research required to answer their
questions.
“New hires spend a lot of time with me and other members of our staff. On
their first day they get what I call, ‘Jess’ Cliff Notes,’ a primer that
gives them the bread and butter of what they need to know to sell furniture.
That information is supplemented by manufacturer’s sales rep presentations.
Every employee in the outdoor furniture department has to sit in on these
sessions whether they’ve been here for 37 years, like Todd Ott who is a
sales legend here, or a recent hire.”
Salisbury says that her five-person sales team is small but mighty. “There
are times of the year when all five of them are here on a Saturday, but
usually we can staff the floor with three or four.”
Display
She’s a firm believer in branding each manufacturer in their own areas of
the store. “The exceptions,” she noted, “are accessory lines like Summer
Classics, and beautiful fire pits from O.W. Lee or Castelle, for example,
that are mixed in. If a customer is searching for a recognized brand like
Lloyd Flanders, Tropitone, Castelle, Polywood, Winston or O.W. Lee, they can
do that easily.
“Segmenting by manufacturer makes presenting products to shoppers a bit
simpler for our staff as well. And, it encourages the manufacturers we work
with to support us by supplying signage.”
Pictured above are Jessica Salisbury, CEO and Todd Ott, Manager.
Seated (l-r) are sales associates Victoria Rowell, Dana Vaughn, and
Jessica Knudson.
“We recently expanded our outdoor cooking center area that’s ideal for
holding outdoor grill events. People are always willing to come out for free
food and beer.”
Outdoor Specialists
Furniture World asked Salisbury if there are advantages outdoor specialist
have over more generalist furniture stores.
“When consumers are looking for outdoor furniture,” she replied, “their
first thought is to visit an outdoor furniture showroom. Big, full-line
furniture showrooms generally carry a limited selection, perhaps seven or
eight outdoor furniture groups sourced from a few manufacturers. To me, it
always seems like an afterthought.
“Big box home improvement stores that sell inexpensive sets and plants,
sacrifice quality. The challenge for an outdoor furniture specialist like
Village Green is that if a shopper goes to Home Depot first, and us second,
either they might think, ‘Holy cow, this is really expensive,’ or, ‘Holy
cow, I can spend a thousand dollars more and get outdoor furnishings that
are beautiful and of obvious quality.’ No matter what a shopper thinks when
they walk in, what they walk out with depends on how well we buy, display
and present.”
The Casual Association
Village Green is a multi-year winner of the International Casual Furniture
Show’s Apollo Award. Salisbury is a big fan of ICFA. “I think the biggest
benefit of being a member is the camaraderie and networking opportunities.
To be able to pick up the phone, call other retailers and ask, ‘Hey, what’s
happening in your area? Are you guys busy? Do you have this chair in stock?
I have a customer who needs one,’ is helpful. We’ve also benefited from some
of ICFA’s training and other programs.”
Event Traffic
Salisbury said that with so many online retailers out there, generating foot
traffic is especially important. “We recently expanded our outdoor cooking
center area that’s ideal for holding outdoor grill events. People are always
willing to come out for free food and beer. We’re adding one more local
fundraiser this year and recently built an education center at our North
Main Street location to get people walking through the door by hosting
workshops and classes.
“We promote these events primarily through Facebook, Instagram, the village
greenrockford.com website as well as our VIP program. The VIP program is for
customers who share their email addresses to receive information about
special events and incentives throughout the year. We just launched a
YouTube channel that should be effective at sharing information and drawing
people in.”
“Approaching customers has become more difficult as they’ve become more time
constrained and seemingly more harried. It’s something sales associates have
to be really careful about handling.”
Customer Preferences
“It’s always a pleasure when a customer is approachable and will let us help
them,” Salisbury observed. “However, today’s shoppers do a lot of research
before visiting a store and don’t always want to get a lot of sales help.
That seems to be a trend. Don’t get me wrong. There are days where people
are absolutely lovely, but more shoppers are letting us know that they are
‘just looking.’ Approaching customers has become more difficult as they’ve
become more time constrained and seemingly more harried. It’s something
sales associates have to be really careful about handling.”
Style Trends
Regarding style trends, Salisbury told Furniture World that “The area we
serve is usually behind the forward portion of the trend curve by a year or
two. Our customers have moved from traditional to more transitional designs,
but contemporary is still a hard sell for us. They’re embracing new color
palettes though. Right now, preferences are trending toward muted earth
tones and grays. Another major trend we see is toward polymer furniture.”
Retail Challenges
“It’s been tough for everyone including us to find good support people,
particularly delivery drivers, warehouse personnel and clerical workers,”
she noted.
Village Green Home and Garden’s product selection has moved from being
more traditional to transitional. Contemporary can be a hard sell.
“It’s crazy to me that somebody with a poor driving record would apply for a
delivery position. It happens all the time. People make interview
appointments and don’t show up. These kinds of issues have increased
dramatically this past year.
“Right now,” she continued, “perhaps the biggest challenge facing furniture
retailers is the amount of inventory they have on hand and the dollars
they’ve invested in it. We’re luckier than others who bought up inventory
left and right, but it’s turning slower, and people are feeling sticker
shock. This is the first year in a while that I’ve seen people pay close
attention to price tags. That wasn’t the case when product was in short
supply. I had a shopper walk past me yesterday, who pointed to a price tag
and said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ So hopefully we start to see pricing level
out. Now that the COVID buying frenzy has passed, sales associates have to
get used to doing real selling again. For the last couple of years most have
just been order writers.”
Going Forward
Salisbury says she is looking forward to getting back to what feels like
normal business. “Specifically,” she noted, “going to Market, writing orders
and having a better sense of appropriate inventory levels. These are all
things we didn’t experience since the start of the pandemic. I’m also
looking forward to shopping the Casual Show in Atlanta—a fresh change.
“The advice I’m giving myself,” she concluded, “and might suggest to others,
is to trust your instincts as a retailer. In other words, go with your gut.
Take good care of the people who work for you because from what I’ve seen,
the work ethic of people looking for employment out there is in general not
anywhere near as good as what we already have.”
“Now that the COVID buying frenzy has passed, sales associates have to get
used to doing real selling again. For the last couple of years most have
just been order writers.”
