A pair of brothers focused on offering "low-cost, high-quality" furniture have tapped into customers' desire for bargains, gaining such momentum that their 7-year-old business will expand by two stores this month.
Phoenix-based Mega Furniture will open one store in Scottsdale today and another in Glendale on Oct. 29.
That's on top of the four stores owners Saleem "Rick" and Karim "Nick" Kanjiyani have opened in Phoenix and Goodyear since 2003.
Rick attributed Mega Furniture's recent growth to customer satisfaction with its quality at a discount. He's able to provide customers with discounts because of Mega Furniture's elevated purchasing power, he said.
"Although we don't have big profit margins, we sell things in large volume," Rick said of his business model.
He hopes Mega Furniture could become more profitable as it expands throughout metro Phoenix, picking up additional revenue from each store. In addition to the Scottsdale and Glendale locations, Rick said he's scouting potential retail space in Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler.
In the past two years, in the teeth of the recession, the two brothers have opened four of their six Mega Furniture stores.
Property owners seeking to fill vacated big-box retail space have encouraged the chain's expansion by sometimes offering reduced rents, he said.
Continental Properties, which owns the Scottsdale retail space on Raintree Drive near Loop 101 that Mega Furniture opened in today, provided free rent for a few months, Rick said.
Russ Posorske, senior vice president at Continental Properties, said that the store will fill a retail space that a Shoe Pavilion vacated about a year ago.
"Here was a tenant who was ready to move in, in a matter of days and weeks," Posorske said. "Continental made a very good deal with Mega Furniture."
The Scottsdale store will include furniture that's slightly more "high end" than what's offered in the other Valley stores, Rick said. However, it will largely follow the model of the other "low-price, high-quality" stores.
"At the 67th Avenue (and Indian School Road) Mega Furniture store, we have a lot of people shopping from Paradise Valley and Scottsdale," Rick said. "We think we'll bring some of that traffic to the Scottsdale store because everyone is looking to save money right now."
Furniture and home-furnishings retail sales in Arizona were up 4.5 percent in July compared with a year earlier, according to data provided by the Arizona Department of Revenue. Despite that, furniture and home-furnishings retail sales fell nearly 19 percent from June to July.
Rick and Nick moved to the United States from India in the '90s. The brothers originally purchased several dollar stores, but decided to sell them after "lots of headaches," Rick said.
That money, as well money acquired from selling other real estate, has been invested into opening the Mega Furniture stores, Rick said.
On Friday, customers at the Mega Furniture in Goodyear said they'd come because of good prices.
"This is the first time we've been here," said Simone Harrill, a Surprise resident. "We came because our friends got their couch here, and it's beautiful and it was for a reasonable price. For us, quality, comfort and price are priorities."
Rainbow Valley resident Cheryl Fugere echoed Harrill.
"Mega Furniture's ads brought us in," Fugere said. "I like what I see, and I like the
Comments
Mike at the Scottsdale Raintree showroom went out of his way to refer my brother for work at the 67th & IndianSchool location.Common courtesy thats probably why these two brothers are so good at the furniture business.Thanks Mike
Common courtesy goes a long way! Thank you for sharing your story.
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