Furniture First Adds Four New Members

Furniture World News Desk on 7/12/2019

Furniture First announced that four retailers were added to the roster of members when the board of directors approved them in May and June. The new members include Furniture Connection in Clarksville, TN, Gladhill Furniture in Middletown, MD, Houston’s Yuma Furniture in Yuma, AZ, and Rana Furniture in Doral, FL.

Furniture Connection was established in October 1999 in Oak Grove, Kentucky, and they moved to their current location in Clarksville, Tennessee a year later. The main store is multi branded and focuses on in-stock merchandise available for same day/next day delivery from their Distribution Center. The operation now includes a Furnish 123, Ashley Homestore and an Ashley Homestore Outlet.

Gladhill Furniture was founded in 1915 as a part-time catalog sales business offering custom-built furniture, extending their product offerings from their previous funerary focus. As the furniture business grew over the years, it became the primary focus of the business. In 1998 Jim Nicholson bought Gladhill Furniture after working for another retailer in the market for a decade. Nicholson currently serves as president of the retailer.

Founded in 1956, Houston’s Yuma Furniture is currently operated by the fourth generation of the Houston family, Tiffany Houston and her husband Rhett Crockett. The main store focuses on in-home design and sales, featuring the store’s designers on their website. The family also owns an Ashley Homestore in the same market.

Rana Furniture has been serving the culturally diverse communities of southeast Florida since 2003. Their six locations carry a variety of vendors with strong value propositions and the retailer’s charity of choice, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, is represented with a permanent fundraising link on their retail website.   

“While each member takes a slightly different approach to their business, they understand the need to operate efficiently and maximize their profitability” said Andrew Kauffman, CEO of Furniture First. “That’s something we can help them with. Rebates are a key element, but when combined with some of our services, like advanced analytics and performance groups, the value of membership grows exponentially.”

About Furniture First: Furniture First is a cooperative national home furnishings and mattress buying group serving full line independent retailers with sales over $2 million. A recent analysis found that collectively the group sells $2.5 billion at retail with their approved merchandise programs in the 518 member storefronts. Furniture First occupies showrooms in Las Vegas (B530) and High Point (IHFC G-770) where they display products from several of the group’s approved vendors. For more information, visit www.FurnitureFirst.coop