ABOUT US
The Reinhart family business has been serving the Philadelphia area since 1895. Fourth generation business operator Fred Reinhart and his staff are happy to answer all of your carpet and flooring questions.
Come on down to Reinhart’s today and shop our 13,000 square foot facility. We stock a huge amount of inventory and carry everything from Area Rugs and Carpet Remnants to Berber, Plush, Texture and Patterned Carpets.
If you can’t find it at Reinhart’s… IT AIN’T MADE! Thousands of rugs and thousands of colors always in-stock.
PRESS
Philadelphia Business Journal
Reinhart on a roll
Inventory is key: He has what customers want.
Carpet outlet says a big inventory lays the groundwork of success
Adam Stone
Special to the Business Journal
By now we have all heard of "just-in-time" management, the notion that a business can run lean on inventory and pull in product only when it is needed. Fred Reinhart has heard of it, too. He knows it is the wave of the future.
And he could not care less.
"You always save for the rainy day, and we do it through our inventory," said the owner of Reinhart Carpet Outlet in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. "Inventory to us is like money in the bank. If we have strong inventory, if we have the right inventory with the proper prices and colors, we will always move that inventory."
Reinhart keeps heaping mountains of flooring in stock, and while the strategy runs counter to most of the current trends, it is one that seems to work well in his special circumstance.
Flooring, he said, is tied most intimately to the larger economic trends."We are not a necessity, we are not a requirement," he said. "So when times are tough and things are down, we are down. When things are doing good, we are up."
How to capitalize on the upswings? Reinhart, who launched the business with his father Ted in 1984, said the answer lies in inventory. "People who buy goods from us want it when they want it. They don't want to wait," he said. "If I can do things in two or four days, that gives me a keen edge over places like Home Depot and Lowe's."
Industry insiders say this strategy has worked in Reinhart's favor.
"When you have a ton inventory like that, it makes everything very accessible," said Bernie Diamond, a floor-covering professional since 1958 who now works as an independent manufacturers' representative. "Everything is marked, everything is labeled, everything is priced. A customer can pretty much walk in there and help himself. Things are well presented. That makes it easy to shop there and easy to buy there."
Others in the business have dabbled in the just-in-time approach. Most manufacturers now make it possible to take such an approach if you are a flooring retailer, but the premium service comes with a premium price.
By ordering in bulk up front, "it means he can buy at the right price, and he can then extend that pricing to his customers," said independent representative Mickey Miller. "His profits are still there, and customers can get themselves an excellent buy."
Still, there are challenges to be addressed. Once the sale is made, the flooring still must be installed, and that means Reinhart has the unenviable task of finding, keeping and, to some extent, policing a cadre of installation subcontractors.
"We work hard to find and keep people who have shown themselves to be steady, dependable, reliable and sober," he said. Sober? Apparently, it's an issue. "Substance abuse and other destructive behaviors are a serious problem for business owners and those who manage labor. That is as true for us as it is for anyone."
When he finds installers who are both competent and clean, Reinhart treats them well, paying them competitive wages and throwing a steady stream of work their way, in an effort to hang onto his best performers.
With the labor problem largely under control, Reinhart is free to turn his attention to what is perhaps his most crucial challenge: Bringing warm bodies into the store, which is located at the corner of Green Street and Queen Lane in Germantown. Perceptions that the neighborhood has seen better days make it hard to attract shoppers from the suburbs.
"We believe that you absolutely throw fuel on the fire. If business is going good, that's when you put the pedal to the metal," he said. While the industry in general spends 3 percent to 5 percent of its gross sales on marketing, Reinhart will boost his budget to more than three times that figure when times are good.
When business is bad, however, Reinhart is the first to twist off the spigot. "We aren't salmon. We can't swim upstream," he said.
In the meantime, he's watching today's dynamic economic environment and gearing up for what he hopes will be a renewed local passion for building and renovating. If and when things do pick up, Fred Reinhart will do what he does best. |
