Bassett Furniture has selected French/West/Vaughan to guide its expansion into new retail markets. The account had been handled in-house.
The Bassett, Va., company reported a sharp decline in third-quarter net to $556K from $2.3M as the retail unit suffered a $1.5M operating loss for the period.
CEO Robert Spilman blamed the “normal tepid sales environment” that Bassett experiences each summer and expects a boost in performance with the completion of a new retail operating system designed to hike efficiency.
Thirty-six of Bassett’s corporate stores had the system at end of the quarter on Aug. 31. The remaining 19 existing units will go on-line by the end of the fiscal year.
The roll-out process proved to be “disruptive to the sales, administration, warehousing and delivery areas of our retail business,” according to Spilman.
Rick French, CEO of F/W/V, calls Bassett “an iconic American brand that has been trusted by consumers for more than a century.”
The Bassett family in the late 1880s ran a sawmill in the foothills of Blue Ridge Mountains northwest of Martinsville, Va., that supplied rail ties to the new Norfolk and Western railroad.
When the rail line was completed, the family diversified into the coffin business before moving into the furniture sector.
F/W/V will handle the Nov. 1 opening of Bassett’s revamped store line in Birmingham. The company will then unveil stories in Fort Worth, Annapolis, Westport (Conn.) and Boston.
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