Conn’s comes to Southaven

The effort to revitalize the original Main Street of Southaven has received a big boost with the opening Friday of a new Conn’s HomePlus store at 570 Stateline Road West, adjacent to the shopping area that includes a Burlington Coat Factory and is just off the Stateline Road exit of I-55.

The Texas-based furniture and specialty home goods retailer last year purchased the Stateline Square Shopping Center with plans to add to the area what will become the third Memphis-area Conn’s HomePlus store and second location in Mississippi, said Jamie Pierce, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer.

”We are incredibly excited,” Pierce said. “This will actually be our 110th store. Southaven is just a great community that we’re looking forward to joining and really bringing to the Southaven community the great things that Conn’s has to offer, so we’re very, very excited.”

The Jackson location is on East County Line Road off I-55. The other Memphis stores are at 3525 Riverdale Road off Bill Morris Parkway and 3260 Austin Peay Highway in Raleigh.

At 45,672 square feet of floor space, the Southaven store will be a little larger than your average Conn’s HomePlus store, Pierce said.

“That’s a pretty typical size,” Pierce said. “Our stores range from an average 40,000 to 45,000 square feet, but we have a few that are over 50,000 square feet. The Southaven store is really ranked in our average size, but slightly bigger.”

Pierce said customers will find a wide range of furniture, appliances and electronics, but she said the company’s financing program sets it apart from others.

“What really makes us unique is our in-house consumer financing program, or what we call ‘Yes Money,’” Pierce said. “It allows customers who may have been turned down for credit at other retailers a means to provide them a program they can afford on quality products for their home. It’s a very unique model but we’re not a regular retailer, we’re very different from other retailers.”

Another item unique to Conn’s, Pierce said, is the store’s policy on quick delivery of furniture items.

“When you think of furniture, one of the main sticking points for customers is that typically furniture can take weeks to deliver to the customer, so if you go to other retailers, it can be four-to-six weeks to get furniture for your home,” Pierce said. “Everything you see on the floor from Conn’s is next-day delivery, which is a really tremendous thing and separates us from other retailers.”

The store did not make a major “splash” in its opening of the Southaven store, but Pierce said it will hold a Grand Opening Event on July 2.

“We call this a ‘soft’ opening when we’ll be opening to customers but at our big Grand Opening event, we’ll be giving away $100 gift cards to the first 100 customers and we’ll have a number of different promotions going on,” Pierce said.

A total of 25 local jobs will be filled in Southaven and they will be working for one of the nation’s growing companies. Benjamin Campbell serves as the store manager.

Conn’s HomePlus was included in Fortune magazine’s 2015 list of the fastest-growing companies and was named a 2015 Hot Retailer by the National Retail Federation.

Conn’s HomePlus stores are now located in 12 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

In Southaven, Pierce said Conn’s will fit right in with DeSoto County’s fast-growing community.

“When you talk about the customers of Conn’s being the middle-class, hard-working customer, we see the demographic of Southaven being a strong customer base coming to Conn’s,” Pierce said. “Our other stores have done incredibly well in the Memphis area, so this is just a natural extension for Conn’s to come to Southaven.”

By BOB BAKKEN Staff Writer of the DeSoto Times-Tribune

http://www.desototimes.com/business/conn-s-comes-to-southaven/article_c9a3cc90-2451-11e6-be23-47cc187012a1.html