Throwback Thursday: Wickes moves the furniture
The June 23, 1980 issue of National Home Center News, the forerunner of HBSDealer, highlighted on page on a home center experiment based on a best-of-both-worlds, one-stop-shopping concept. The headline said it all: “Wickes tests furniture/lumber combo.”
More specifically, Wickes Corp. was for the first time planted one of its 260 Wickes Lumber units and one of its 23 Wickes Furniture stores in the same parking lot. The experiment, which officials at the time called “the wave of the future,” took place in Virginia Beach, Va.
The photo accompanying the story shows the cross-merchandising effort in full effect. A sign at Wickes Lumber explains: “See this item and many more next door at Wickes Furniture.”
The article explained: “The lumber center will stock some 4,500 hardware items and will feature a video computerized order system that permits customers to select from supplier inventories of some 350,000 individual items.
“The new store also will display a cutaway two-story ‘how-to house’ spotlighting building material applications and construction techniques, such as plumbing, roofing and insulation applications,” the article continued.
Wickes carries on, but as a United Kingdom home center company, it’s presence in the U.S. a memory.
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Did you work at Wickes? Let us know your thoughts on the company’s legacy. Add your comment below.
More specifically, Wickes Corp. was for the first time planted one of its 260 Wickes Lumber units and one of its 23 Wickes Furniture stores in the same parking lot. The experiment, which officials at the time called “the wave of the future,” took place in Virginia Beach, Va.
The photo accompanying the story shows the cross-merchandising effort in full effect. A sign at Wickes Lumber explains: “See this item and many more next door at Wickes Furniture.”
The article explained: “The lumber center will stock some 4,500 hardware items and will feature a video computerized order system that permits customers to select from supplier inventories of some 350,000 individual items.
“The new store also will display a cutaway two-story ‘how-to house’ spotlighting building material applications and construction techniques, such as plumbing, roofing and insulation applications,” the article continued.
Wickes carries on, but as a United Kingdom home center company, it’s presence in the U.S. a memory.
# # #
Did you work at Wickes? Let us know your thoughts on the company’s legacy. Add your comment below.