R.C. Willey Home Furnishings

1932–1995

R.C. Willey Home Furnishings is a leading home furnishings and electronics chain based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The company has grown into the biggest furniture dealer west of the Mississippi by offering a huge selection, convenient credit, and prompt delivery. R.C. Willey stocks its dozen stores from a nearly 900,000-square-foot distribution center, said to be the largest of its kind in the country. The company was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. in 1995.

Origins

Like many businesses, R.C. Willey Home Furnishings started as a sideline. Rufus Call Willey, an employee of the local electric company in Syracuse, Utah, began selling Hotpoint brand appliances door-to-door in 1932.

To get people using refrigerators or electric ranges when electricity was brand new to the area, he would let them try out the appliances for a week. He also let them finance the purchases in installments over a three-year period, payable at harvest time.

Willey resorted to refurbishing ranges and refrigerators from salvage yards during World War II. However, sales of new appliances boomed after the war.

Until this time, Willey had conducted business out of the back of a red pickup truck. In 1950, he built his first small store next door to his house in Syracuse, Utah, a small town northwest of Salt Lake City.

Leadership Change in 1954

Willey left the business in June 1954 due to terminal cancer. William H. Child, who had married Willey's daughter Pat two years earlier, took over the business. Child's brother Sheldon joined him in 1956. At the time, sales were about $200,000 a year, according to one source. William Child is credited with adding furniture to the company's appliance offerings.

It cost $5 million to open, reported HFD.

1956–1996

The original 600-square-foot store in Syracuse was remodeled for the first time in 1956. It would eventually grow to 100,000 square feet.

Growing from the 1970s through the 1990s

The company built its second store in 1969. It was located in Murray, a suburb to the south of Salt Lake City. West Valley City, to the west, got a store in 1986. Both of these would be expanded repeatedly as the business grew.

R.C. Willey began an important marketing tactic in the early 1980s: giving out free hot dogs to increase traffic. In HFD--The Weekly Home Furnishings Newspaper, company executives credited the chain's success to three factors: an eye for expansion, focus on the middle segment of the market, and dedication to customer satisfaction.

A 73,000-square-foot store was opened in Orem, a community just north of Provo in Utah County, in November 1990. It cost $5 million to open, reported HFD. By this time, R.C. Willey had six stores (one a clearance outlet) and employed 700 people. Sales were $100 million in 1990, reported HFD.

The company opened its Central Distribution Center in the middle of the Salt Lake Valley in 1991. This included an 80,000-square-foot store adjacent to a 400,000-square-foot warehouse. The combined project cost $13.5 million, according to HFD.

A smaller furniture outlet and a carpet outlet opened nearby in the mid-1990s. A 100,000-square-foot store opened in a suburb of Ogden, north of Salt Lake City, in 1996.

The chain's range of offerings continued to expand with the addition of fitness equipment, personal computers, and snow blowers. Some stores were being fitted with garages for installing car stereos. The company began selling futons in late 1994 and by 1996, they were a million-dollar business.

1995–1999

Berkshire Hathaway Buys Company in 1995

By 1995, R.C. Willey's seven furniture stores were claiming annual sales of about $300 million, and the company had 1,300 employees. By this time, electronics were an important part of the product mix, and the company was holding its own against competition from big box retailers. A study done for R.C. Willey estimated it led the Utah home electronics market with a 28 percent share, while it commanded more than half of the furniture market. Its personal computer sales were worth about $20 million a year, according to Computer Retail Week.

Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., the holding company led by billionaire investment guru Warren Buffet, acquired R.C. Willey on May 24, 1995. The price was a reported $150 million in stock. For a dozen years, Berkshire owned another furniture retailer, Nebraska Furniture Mart, which operated what was considered to be the industry's largest single store. R.C. Willey CEO Bill Child credited Nebraska Furniture Mart president with suggesting the deal to Buffet, reported the Omaha World Herald.

With the backing of Berkshire Hathaway, R.C. Willey continued to build. Its Intermountain Distribution Center, erected next to Salt Lake International Airport in 1997, was the largest of its kind in the United States at 860,000 square feet. It cost $30 million and replaced three existing warehouses.

An outlet opened in Provo in 1998. The same year, R.C. Willey's store in South Salt Lake City became the site of a "Whaling Wall" mural by the famous marine artist Wyland. The company was also testing an interactive kiosk system inside three of its stores.

Beyond Utah in 1999

R.C. Willey expanded outside Utah for the first time in August 1999, when it opened a store in Meridian, Idaho (near Boise). It instantly claimed the leading spot in that market.

A 162,500-square-foot store opened in Henderson, Nevada, two years later. According to HFN, the Las Vegas metro area was the fastest growing in the United States, attracting 8,000 new residents a month. R.C. Willey was unique in the range of products it offered under one roof, allowing shoppers to buy home electronics and cabinets on the same trip. Another distinct practice was the company's policy of closing stores on Sundays.

1987–2005

Revenues were about $400 million in 2000, when the company had about 2,000 employees. Furniture accounted for about 60 percent of sales. Its credit operations had more than $185 million in loans, making it one of Utah's largest finance companies, noted the Salt Lake Tribune. Bedding sales alone were worth $25 million, according to HFN.

To keep volume up, the company spent heavily on advertising and promotions such as giving away 600,000 hot dogs a year. For special occasions, the company teamed up with pizza restaurants like Domino's in the giveaways.

Chief financial officer Scott L. Hymas, who had been with the company since 1987, succeeded Bill Child as CEO in February 2001. Child remained chairman. At the same time, Bill Child's nephew, Jeffrey S. Child, became the company's president.

A second Las Vegas area store opened in May 2003. Stores were averaging sales between $35 million and $90 million a year, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Furniture Today reported the second Las Vegas store as having sales between $85 million and $100 million. By 2004, 41 percent of sales were coming from outside Utah, according to Warren Buffet's yearly letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.

R.C. Willey was opening a new store in Reno, Nevada, in 2005. A 150,000-square-foot site was planned for Sacramento, California, the following year. The pro-business atmosphere of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger encouraged the entry into California, Hymas told Furniture Today. A third store was under consideration for Las Vegas. The company had also been scouting locations in the Pacific Northwest.

Parent company Berkshire Hathaway applied to open an industrial bank in Utah in 2005 in order to consolidate R.C. Willey's extensive credit operations. The company's finance department then employed about five dozen people, and more than 130,000 customers had charge cards with the company. R.C. Willey also provided financing for about 50 Big-O Tires stores. Its consumer loans were worth $185 million, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.