I was there at Friday at 9-11am. Most people do not shop for furniture around that time and my car was not in the picture.There were however, quite a few people in line discussing payment plans for furniture already (or to be) purchased and I did run into more people in the store. The company does the majority of its sales on the weekend in addition to online sales all throughout the week.
Remember, B&M stores are adapting to counter online retailers, Rotman's is branching out with Vytex acquisition. In my eyes this is a very strong move done by people who understand the coming economic changes. In fact, I see the most LT potential in FEC. According to industry trends, Rotman's financials would decline in the next several years (B&M trend), if they stayed in house; instead they are branching out, making sales online, getting into the bed-in-a-box sales game.
While out of all B&M, furniture stores are on the safer side as people want to see furniture in person because they want to get an actual feel for the product. Still, adapt or die is the name of the game. Sears couldn't see it and now all they have is Real Estate.
The Rotman's were smart enough to see the big picture and realize they needed to add revenue streams and they have been planning this out for awhile. When I got a salesperson talking about Steve's pet projects and expansion the person joked saying, Rotman's wants to expand and take over the world. They clearly have the tech, they also have the sales staff and above all they have the connections. (In particular, Bryan Stone is BoD of VYST, CEO of FEC and Medical Director at multiple DaVita Centers...serve over 1.7M patients/sold for $5B in 2018.)
Kicker is do they have the cash? In addition to Rotman's $35M a year, and cash reserves, it is the perfect business to borrow against so as to take FEC, Vytex and RxAir through their aggressive expansion stage and into the future.
I know its a picture I am painting, but if you put it together it shows these guys are serious about the future, have a family name to protect and are ambitious, connected and driven enough to make it all happen.
