Stout Brothers Emerges Into Major Decorative Jobber
December 7, 2001
Colmar, PA (USA) - As it approaches its 75th anniversary, Stout Brothers Co., with sales of just under $20 million has been growing at a rate of at least 10 percent for each of the last three years.
The hiring of Arthur Breziner who joined Stout from Robert Allen five years ago has helped stimulate this growth, according to Mark Rickers, a partner.
''With Arthur, Stout has transformed itself from a reupholstery and open line supplier for interior designers to a supplier to the interior design trade only with our own exclusive collections,'' said Rickers. Stout''s collections are split evenly between open line and exclusives. ''Our wovens for upholstery are all 100% exclusive-supplied 30% by European mills and 70% from the U.S.A.''
Rickers, who joined the firm 29 years ago, is one of four equal partners all 53 or younger; the others are Bill, Bob and Mark Greenwald, third generation owners. Bob runs the technical end including computer and finance, and Bill and Bruce handle sales.
Stout''s trading area is the U.S.A. ''At this point, we do not have exclusive showrooms because our business can be best served in putting our money into the product line. Stout has 30 fulltime employees and 60 independent sales agents.
''Our strongest growth areas have been California and Florida but we''re spread out with a strong representation on the Eastern seaboard.
''Merger and acquisition interests us. 12 years ago we bought an upholstery jobber in the Midwest. That worked out well. This gave us a presence in Midwest. We would consider buying another firm. We''re in medium to high priced fabrics with a growing interest in the higher end of the market.''
''We also market a road line for our reps that is much larger in scale. We show one-square-yard pieces. This line has 2-3 collections per year with 10-20 SKUs each.
Our current collection is based on a botanical, nature theme. We target 10% growth a year because we are smaller and able to move on a dime.
Stout''s Colmar, Pennsylvania-based warehouse is 30,000 square feet. Rickers said that he expects the company to increase capacity by one-third in the next three years. ''Since we made the change with Arthur doing the buying, our lines are available in 50 showrooms in the U.S. and through 50 independent sales reps. We have put a percentage of contract and residential multi-purpose in our books, but we''re concentrating on increasing our residential marketshare.
''We offer upper end fabrics that are a value in the marketplace. By shopping so many different mills, we can buy the best look art the best price. With our combined years in the business - Arthur and I - we can combine different yarns and warps to come up with the look we want.
''Stout is our only real brand; Art of Color(tm) printed on all of our book covers reflects the colors in our book programs.
''Our niche is that we market by color in a unique way. We have three programs: one for wovens. Second, we have a multipurpose book, which works, along with our exclusive wovens. Third, our trim collection is coordinated by color with the multi purpose and exclusive woven fabric collections.
''Our secret is that we deal with 43 different woven mills and our books reflect this great diversity in style. We spread our orders around with all of our mills in upholstery. We go to as many converters as are out there. They have consolidated but they have also broadened their lines. This makes it more efficient for our buying activities.''
Breziner and Rickers work together on buying and merchandising.
''We couldn''t put our finger on anything specific at Decosit this year - except that everything had to be soft. We saw diversity in color and style - a lot of crinkled surfaces with stretch yarn and puckering - lustrous yarn and flat yarn with different weave effects.
''Previously chenilles and boucle created the texture and now within those yarns, we''re seeing more diversity. Mills are creating texture on the surface with more novelty warps and chenilles yarns. We''re also seeing different motifs-using tissue pick-which floats on back to create surface design-as opposed to flat woven tapestries.'' F&FI
The hiring of Arthur Breziner who joined Stout from Robert Allen five years ago has helped stimulate this growth, according to Mark Rickers, a partner.
''With Arthur, Stout has transformed itself from a reupholstery and open line supplier for interior designers to a supplier to the interior design trade only with our own exclusive collections,'' said Rickers. Stout''s collections are split evenly between open line and exclusives. ''Our wovens for upholstery are all 100% exclusive-supplied 30% by European mills and 70% from the U.S.A.''
Rickers, who joined the firm 29 years ago, is one of four equal partners all 53 or younger; the others are Bill, Bob and Mark Greenwald, third generation owners. Bob runs the technical end including computer and finance, and Bill and Bruce handle sales.
Stout''s trading area is the U.S.A. ''At this point, we do not have exclusive showrooms because our business can be best served in putting our money into the product line. Stout has 30 fulltime employees and 60 independent sales agents.
''Our strongest growth areas have been California and Florida but we''re spread out with a strong representation on the Eastern seaboard.
''Merger and acquisition interests us. 12 years ago we bought an upholstery jobber in the Midwest. That worked out well. This gave us a presence in Midwest. We would consider buying another firm. We''re in medium to high priced fabrics with a growing interest in the higher end of the market.''
''We also market a road line for our reps that is much larger in scale. We show one-square-yard pieces. This line has 2-3 collections per year with 10-20 SKUs each.
Our current collection is based on a botanical, nature theme. We target 10% growth a year because we are smaller and able to move on a dime.
Stout''s Colmar, Pennsylvania-based warehouse is 30,000 square feet. Rickers said that he expects the company to increase capacity by one-third in the next three years. ''Since we made the change with Arthur doing the buying, our lines are available in 50 showrooms in the U.S. and through 50 independent sales reps. We have put a percentage of contract and residential multi-purpose in our books, but we''re concentrating on increasing our residential marketshare.
''We offer upper end fabrics that are a value in the marketplace. By shopping so many different mills, we can buy the best look art the best price. With our combined years in the business - Arthur and I - we can combine different yarns and warps to come up with the look we want.
''Stout is our only real brand; Art of Color(tm) printed on all of our book covers reflects the colors in our book programs.
''Our niche is that we market by color in a unique way. We have three programs: one for wovens. Second, we have a multipurpose book, which works, along with our exclusive wovens. Third, our trim collection is coordinated by color with the multi purpose and exclusive woven fabric collections.
''Our secret is that we deal with 43 different woven mills and our books reflect this great diversity in style. We spread our orders around with all of our mills in upholstery. We go to as many converters as are out there. They have consolidated but they have also broadened their lines. This makes it more efficient for our buying activities.''
Breziner and Rickers work together on buying and merchandising.
''We couldn''t put our finger on anything specific at Decosit this year - except that everything had to be soft. We saw diversity in color and style - a lot of crinkled surfaces with stretch yarn and puckering - lustrous yarn and flat yarn with different weave effects.
''Previously chenilles and boucle created the texture and now within those yarns, we''re seeing more diversity. Mills are creating texture on the surface with more novelty warps and chenilles yarns. We''re also seeing different motifs-using tissue pick-which floats on back to create surface design-as opposed to flat woven tapestries.'' F&FI
