November 2, 2015
BESTMOMENTS
Magician Hart Keene returns to perform for Fixed Point Foundation Fundraising Event at Summer Classics Headquarters
Fixed Point on the Horizon Bew White, President Summer Classics Companies
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This month appears to be one of the best months in the history of the company. As of October 30, sales for Summer Classics for the month of October are up over 50%. Sales for all companies are up over 30%. Contract sales are up over 50%. We're not sure if this is a trend but if it is, we will take it. Last Saturday night on October 24, Summer Classics held a charity event for Fixed Point Foundation and celebrated the opening of the new building. There was a private seated dinner and everyone was dressed in black tie. We were able to raise over $30,000 for Fixed Point Foundation with SC as the primary donor of $15,000. Our magical friend Hart Keene returned to perform an even more daring act then he did in August. Our PR Manager, Rob Robinson ended the evening with the song written by David Foster‌ "The Prayer" originally
sung by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli. This received a standing ovation with many bravos as well. White Label continues to receive rave reviews and we have received a large number of new dealers set up across the USA.
Believe it or not Wright Currie and Matt Scallions leave for China, Indonesia and Vietnam next week to finish the 2017 line. Once again we have a few tricks up our sleeve.
Black Tie Event
BESTMOMENTS November 2, 2015
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Contract Update Annual Sales Meeting Don Smith, V.P. Contract Sales Summer Classics Contract Sales
Our Contract Sales team has really enjoyed October! We began the month at the Moscone Center in San Francisco attending the InterContinental Hotels Group ownership summit. We were very excited to receive well over 100 visitors to our exhibit space and even better, many of those guests owned multiple hotels across multiple flags so we were truly able to capitalize on our time at the show. Also, of interest, at least one of our territory managers converted an IHG lead into a sale within 10 days after the show close! It’s so fantastic when we see those orders come in right
after a show, makes the effort feel a lot more worthwhile. In Santa Monica, Sherri Witkowski represented us at the annual Boutique Lifestyle Leadership Symposium and Gala. Sherri had an opportunity to network with many owners and designers from the area and spread her love of Summer Classics to a great group of people involved in decision making for the hospitality industry. Speaking of effort, there are never enough words to thank all of the people who put these shows together and this one was no exception. We offer heartfelt gratitude to everyone who went above and beyond to make this event a success for our company. It is always fun to talk about exceeding sales goals and October has seen us exceed our order entry goal
and that means an order entry increase North of 33%, part of the beauty in those numbers is that they are really starting to come from a lot of different areas in the country. One of the shortterm goals that is and will continue to help us in growing our business unit is a seamless relationship with design and procurement as well as adding accessories and variety to our offering. We are already starting to see some of our 2016 products arrive and that of course creates great excitement for our team. And last but not least we are very happy to have our 2016 catalog in hand as well as being able to offer a digital link for viewing. See the new catalog here - http:// summerclassics.com/contract-sales/ tools-catalog/ or follow the link on our website.
BESTMOMENTS November 2, 2015
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Gabby Update High Point William White, President Gabby
Gabby returns from High Point after an outstanding market! We had over 1800 customers and prospects walk through our showroom to view the line and enjoy our events. Several members of our marketing team also came up for the show. The team met with the press (Veranda, Domino, Traditional Home, Elle DÊcor, Milieu, and Southern Home all visited), promoted our events and new introductions via social media, presented the new products to our sales representatives, and put together some great events. We had wine tasting, hors d’oeuvres a launch event for Southern Home magazine. Everyone did a wonderful job of making it all happen! As we look toward year-end, we are doing our best to ship out more product than ever. We have a lot of product arriving this month and our team in Asia continues to work on improvements in production times, packaging, and quality. William and Morgan leave for Vietnam and China on Monday for almost two weeks to audit new suppliers and work with existing factories on a variety of fronts, including vendor scorecards and new product development. Our marketing team continues to generate interest in our cooperative advertising program and we have some upcoming webinars to roll this program out to key dealers. The new Gabby catalog is also being laid out and we have an upcoming photo shoot to add some beautiful lifestyle images to the book. We are anticipating delivery of our 11th Chapter catalog to customers after the Thanksgiving holiday. Stay tuned. We also want to give big congratulations to our team for winning the group costume and display awards at the Halloween event! They did an amazing job of scaring the ba-jeepers out of the rest of the staff ! Well-done and Happy Halloween! Be safe.
BESTMOMENTS November 2, 2015
Sales Update Schon Duke, VP Sales Summer Classics
I am proud to report that as of Oct. 26, year-to-date, our outstanding sales team has increased wholesale sales nearly 13%! We appreciate their hard work and dedication to the success of our company. Teak sales alone are up this year by almost 60% over last year. Table sales are up nearly 20% and our introduction of new Occasional Tables has a lot to do with that. We continue to get reports from our sales force of the overwhelming popularity and success of these new tables.
tracking even with EB last year. The next program’s discounts will be dramatically reduced so this is the last time for dealers to get a substantial EB discount and “load their wagon”. We expect additional growth for the 2015-2016 season in our design business as our sales team continues to target designers and
large design firms with our newly renovated designer’s program which offers them volume based discounts. Add this to the overwhelmingly positive response that we have had from indoor furniture stores and we have a recipe for success for the coming year! We are poised to take this company to the next level!
They continue to press forward, writing Early Buy orders and opening new dealers. October 31 marks the close of Early Buy Program III and we expect an influx of EB orders over the next day or two. EB to date is currently
IT Update Ben Erickson, V.P. Information Technology Summer Classics Companies
This past weekend is our Syspro ERP system was upgraded. Computer access was down Thursday through Sunday. This is a major milestone that will give us the foundation to transition to branch accounting and improved operations performance. In addition to the Syspro upgrade, we are transitioning to a new SC Online ordering system that will give dealers better access to inventory, invoice history, open order status, and the ability to submit orders to SC in real time. Dealers using the existing website will be prompted to register with the new site before they can gain access to their information.
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Parker James Update Harold Hudson, President Parker James
Parker James continues to have a good order entry month with Dealers wrapping up their container orders. As of today we have received 90% of the same amount of direct container orders that we received in 2015. We should end up with about a 5%-10% growth over 2015 and we know we have some additional orders coming in next week. Parker James has also received orders for two private label groups from some of our specialty retailers and we are currently wrapping up the details for two other groups.
Harold Hudson heads to Asia week after next to start preparing for 2017 and will join the Summer Classics Design Team and Pam Cheung’s staff working on new products. Remember Parker James still has inventory and cushions that we can ship in 48 hours.
BESTMOMENTS November 2, 2015
Marketing Update SC Marketing Services Mark Griggs, V.P. Marketing Summer Classics Companies
We have marked the end of summer and firmly embraced fall. In that vein, Marketing has been transitioning throughout October. There has been much planning and strategy discussion for budgeting and cooperative marketing. In addition, we supported a very successful Gabby High Point show, made a new plan for fulfillment and added an important new staff member. We rolled out our 2016 Co-op Plan and we continue to communicate these new services to our constituents. Our goal with co-op is to support our customers and assist them in selling more products. We are introducing digital marketing components that will allow more of a one to one support relationship with our client’s businesses. We are continuing to offer national magazines along with television production and buying services. We have added a turnkey program to provide our clients with custom local market research. This research program highlights the specific demographics of markets surrounding retail locations and the best ways in which to market to those areas. It can be used for all media relationships to eliminate expensive waste from marketing campaigns. Gabby had a great show in High Point! We produced signage and sales promotion materials for the event. We sent a couple of our best along to help out. Rob Robinson handled media inquiries for the
event. Linda Thach helped out with media and provided real time social media updates from the show. Andrea Rezzonico provided marketing analysis support and all provided the usual “Whatever it takes” attitude. We are actively making the necessary changes to increase our ability to fulfill marketing and sales requests. We have added shelf space in the fulfillment area and we are ordering materials and equipment to support expansion. We have approved an additional employee to work full time with Gwen Harris. We will be consolidating marketing materials and adding new digital support structures to provide faster fulfillment services for all of our divisions. Finally, we added an important new staff member to Marketing. Sam Easterling joins the team as our new web developer. Sam has a wealth of experience in web development and design. He has already began making his mark in planning the addition of a brand new intranet site and an upgrade to our Dealer Tools website. We will all have the opportunity to see and experience his positive impact in the weeks and months to come as we enjoy many fruitful new user experiences with all of our web properties.
Press and Announcements Rob Robinson, Public Relations Manager Summer Classics Companies
• Traditional Home: November issue. “Inspiration Home” outdoor areas by Eric Ross, feat. SC furniture • Elle Décor. Nov. “What’s Hot”. Feat. Barkley Table (Exclusive until Oct 14). Circ. 580,000/issue. 98% of readers read that section. Of those 98%, 55% take action on something they see in that section. • Veranda. November/December issue's “Lookbook” column. Feat. Nina Horn Drink Table.
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• Milieu. Nov. Ad feat. Gabby • Southern Home Magazine Launch in Gabby High Point Showroom. Ad feat. Gabby • Cottage Journal Holiday. Ad feat. SC Home • TV “Show Me St. Louis” feat. SC HOME Store • Shelby County Chamber of Commerce Tours SC-31 Headquarters • Black Tie Event at SC-31 benefitting Fixed Point Foundation