If remodeling your bathroom or kitchen is on your to-do list, the roll of retailers that wants your business is growing.
Just take a look at the Chicago area where the Great Indoors, Expo Design Center and KDA Kitchen Design have opened spiffy new stores to attract this lucrative group of customers.
This is one contest where the little guy has a head start.
Itasca-based KDA has 16 showrooms around Chicago, compared with two giant Great Indoors stores and five Expos. KDA also has more name recognition in this area, where its advertising tagline, “For the heart of your home,” has floated through the airwaves for years.
But that could soon change. The Great Indoors, part of Sears, Roebuck and Co., is making a big push with a TV and radio campaign. Expo, a unit of Home Depot, is getting the word out through direct mail and sporadic newspaper advertising.
Both stores have another advantage over KDA: Their much-larger size allows them to carry everything from bathroom sinks to carpets to throw pillows.
But KDA is doing a little remodeling of its own.
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The family-owned company recently opened its largest showroom at 1578 N. Clybourn Ave., just a stone’s throw from the new Expo at 1500 N. Dayton St. The new store features more kitchen and bath vignettes that help consumers visualize what their rooms could look like–the same approach that the Great Indoors is taking.
And KDA now offers to install the kitchens and bathrooms it designs, just like the other two. And it’s able to provide home equity and other financing through an arrangement with Fifth Third Bank.
“The consumer is looking for a one-stop shop solution,” says Robb Best, KDA’s general manager.
KDA is more interested in dealing directly with customers than ever. After opening its doors as Builders Plumbing & Heating Supply in 1948, the company created Kitchen Distributors of America and opened its first showroom in Chicago in 1957.
The showroom was targeted at the wholesale trade, the contractor crowd, although consumers eventually grew to represent about 50 percent of the business.
Riding the local housing boom, KDA has grown to be the largest independent seller of cabinets and bath fixtures in the Chicago area with 224 employees and 2001 sales of about $75 million.
But will it be able to hold on to that share as Expo and the Great Indoors expand?
Best believes it will. KDA has several advantages, he says. It actually stocks the cabinets it sells, so it can deliver a kitchen in as little as 24 hours. Expo and the Great Indoors can’t do that.
KDA also has designers with an average of 12 years experience, where its larger competitors are snapping up recent interior design graduates, Best says. “We’re pretty entrenched in Chicago. I think we’re actually in pretty good shape.”
New line available: Agnes b., the understated French designer, has added her men’s collection to her store at 46 E. Walton St.
The men’s spring/summer collection features light wool suits and cotton suits in pale summer colors and bright, printed shirts.
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