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From mailbox to mall

Direct mail success Ballard Designs goes retail in Tampa.

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published July 18, 2007

Ballard Designs sales associate Karen Teague works behind the counter of the newly opened International Plaza store. The centerpiece of the store is the 4-sided clock, reminiscent of those found in European train stations.
	[Times photo: Melissa Lyttle]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Melissa Lyttle] In the design center, located inside the newly opened Ballard Designs store, customers can customize their order with a myriad of fabric choices with names like Provence Floral, Red Petite Fleur-de-lis, and Brigitte.

A direct mail veteran used to wooing shoppers with Web sites and glossy decor catalogs, Mike Ippolito didn't wait long to confirm Ballard Designs' first retail store is a new customer magnet.

Once the store opened last week at International Plaza, a first-timer caressed the fabric, plopped down to test the cushions and quizzed him about a $3,200 sofa.

The next day she brought her husband, bought the sofa and spent $8,000 more.

"A furniture shopper will look two or three times before buying," said the 51-year-old president of Ballard Designs. "About 40 percent of our orders come over the Internet, but our direct mail business is getting mature. So the shift is clear. Big furniture and decor retailers must be multichannel operators who straddle a presence on the Web, catalog and in stores."

A few years ago that would have been heresy from a mail-order merchant in the dot.com age. Now it's accepted reality.

A catalog filled with a European country look, Ballard is a latecomer to the trend. But if the retailer, part of Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, which also owns HSN in St. Petersburg, hopes to catch rival Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware and more moderately-priced Crate & Barrel, it needs stores where people can touch, feel and experience the goods. And shoppers may learn what Ballard is before it tries to slip into their lives by mailbox or computer search.

The company once tested new products online. Now it will be done in stores, including a new retail corner of the Ballard clearance center in Atlanta.

With home fashion sales languishing with the housing slump, the timing has a sense of urgency.

But fleshing out a store that breathes life into a one-dimensional, paper version of a lifestyle brand took three years since Ippolito's team first sketched ideas on a Left Bank bistro napkin during an antique buying trip.

They had to dream up everything from credit card applications to shopping bags. About 20 percent of the 3,000 lower-price impulse items were created to be sold in stores: candles, wrapping paper with Parisian maps and faux flowers. Acid-staining the bare concrete floor of a former Lord & Taylor to look like a weathered French village street scene took three weeks.

"We obsessed over everything, even the bolts that hold displays together had to have just the right patina," said Laura Daily, merchandise vice president.

They tied it together with storefront replicas like a floral shop facade that leads to the patio goods.

"The store looks better than the catalog, more high-end," said Michelle Bozman, a 35-year-old Ballard veteran customer from St. Petersburg. "But they don't have quite all the furniture."

The catalog sprang from a 1983 photo spread in Metropolitan Home magazine of Atlanta socialite Helen Ballard Weeks' condo. She fielded so many calls for decorating help, she set up a catalog.

Sales jumped from $43-million when she sold it in 1997 to $160-million in 2006 when big annual sales gains leveled off with the end of the housing boom. Ippolito was dubious that Diller, whose company is about fitting the Internet into everyday commerce, would buy into old-style brick and mortar.

"But once he saw the opportunity, he said: 'What took you so long?' "

Ballard sells a classic style of reproductions inspired by old world antiques. Influences are French and Italian. Wood finishes are distressed; colors, washed-out earth tones, yellow, gray and green.

The store is laced with real antiques to show how copies match. The 19th century Martell chest that costs $4,800 is next to an $899 reproduction. So far the authentics sold so well Ballard won't price them until replacements are on the way.

A small fraction of sales is furniture. But it sets the tone for wall hangings, rugs and tableware that add a touch of Provence even to an office or laundry room.

The International Plaza store is a test along with a smaller one in a outdoor center that opens in Jacksonville by fall. The bigger Tampa version has a back-door warehouse so sales can be cash and carry to the parking lot.

But catalogs are sprinkled about so orders can be sent UPS from an Ohio distribution center, too.

The store has a CAD design terminal for custom fabric and furniture orders. A computer terminal for casual shoppers sits on a dining room table behind the checkout.

"Some high-tech kiosk wouldn't fit in," said Ippolito. "We want customers to feel like they're browsing the Web at home."

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or 727 893-8252.

More about Ballard

- In 1997, Ballard merged with Cornerstone Brands Inc., a publisher of specialty catalogs, including Frontgate, Garnet Hill, Smith & Noble, The Territory Ahead and TravelSmith.

- In March 2005, Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, owner of TV shopping network HSN in St. Petersburg, announced it was acquiring Cornerstone.

- Last week, Ballard opened a retail store at International Plaza, its first.

About Ballard

- Ballard was founded in 1982 by Helen Ballard Weeks after her condo was showcased in a magazine.

- She quit her job and published her first catalog, a two-page, black-and-white brochure, in August 1983.

- Today, Ballard distributes 40-million copies a year of the full-color monthly.

[Last modified July 18, 2007, 01:10:49]