Our Story We've retired from the furniture business! Our History: We grew from a tiny attic office to 25,000 square feet in 7 years. Whitefields Furniture, LLC was founded in 1997 as an internet-only business - we sold one model of a sofa table through internet auction sites. Our office was in our attic, and each day I loaded boxes into my old station wagon and carted them to the UPS office. Sales were strong, and we opened a retail store in a 1,500 square foot historic building in downtown Forney, Texas. Sales increased so we stopped selling over the internet as soon as we could and concentrated on walk-in retail sales.
Last Location, 2003, (25,000 sf) In 2000, we moved to a 5,000 square foot warehouse and suffered through a summer of 110 degree temperatures along with our customers. Anyone remember the giant chair pile and the $5 coffee tables? Those were the days. Sales skyrocketed again. A year passed and we bought our own 8,000 square foot facility on highway front property here in Forney. The new showroom was air conditioned (wow), so our customers didn't melt. Our business focused on cash and carry liquidations, auctions, and new bedroom and dining furniture sales. In the winter of 2002, we purchased a 25,000 square foot showroom and warehouse. The new location officially opened in March, 2003. Over a half-acre packed with furniture. In 2003 we had trouble with a major chain store: they threatened our suppliers because our prices were so low! They demanded that we fix prices and cease advertising, or we would be cut off. Now that's playing dirty! I responded by lowering our prices and increasing advertising. We refused to back down, and we won the day. We also spread the word, and we ended up costing this bully chain store tens of thousands of dollars by diverting potential customers away. To this day, I make sure everyone I meet will never, ever give them a dime. Using the publicity from this event, sales soared to record levels every weekend during 2003, and made it our best year. That one mistake still costs them dearly. Take that you bully! During 2004, we became direct importers of quality bedroom furniture. Container after container of new bedrooms poured in, and once again we became the leader in direct import bedrooms. It was another record year. In July, 2005, after 7 years of working days, nights and weekends without a break, we sold out and retired from the furniture business to have more time for our other interests. Like panoramic photography:
Or maybe sailing:
No, there's no way to contact us now! We want to thank all of our customers, employees, and families for 7 years of support and fun! See you on the water! Todd, Suzanne, Stephanie, and John.
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