Geen & Richards
Geen & Richards was established over 100 years ago and is a highly aspirational luxury furniture retail brand.
In 1909 Thomas Richards, a former employee of both Stuttafords and John Orrs, formed an association with Herbert Henry Geen.
They opened their own business on the ground floor of 113 President Street Johannesburg and with in a year business was going well enough to necessitate a move to larger premises in Market Street, from where they began to sell locally sourced furniture.
As time moved on Geen & Richards became a household name synonymous with quality furniture and famous brand home appliances.
The tradition of superior quality combined with unique designs and styles continues today, with a large portion of furniture being imported from Italy.
Wetherlys
Wetherlys was launched (as a family business) in 1973, and operated out of a small garage in Auckland Park (Johannesburg). It introduced handmade furniture, combined with old Cape yellow wood antiques, rattan and a selection of imported basket weave and porcelain, to the discerning market.
With the prohibitive cost of conventional retail space, the idea of the Warehouse concept was sparked. These days, Wetherlys operates in excess of 30 branches.
The secret to Wetherlys success has been a unique balance between imported and locally manufactured products, with quality and exclusivity being of the utmost importance. A highly skilled team of buyers travel extensively to obtain new ideas and to source the latest trends. The buyers efforts have resulted in an awe-inspiring selection of over 60,000 items of merchandise.
Lubners
The Lubners brand is a household name and one of the best known brands in South Africa, hence their pay off line of “WOW! Lubners are the greatest”. Lubners has reached a milestone in its proud history by turning 100 years old this year. The brand has a well established and stable senior management team.
Lubners’ competitive edge is in the lounge and bedding categories with plugs constituting a major portion of its sales mix. The brand, however, offers a full range of merchandise, at competitive prices, to an aspirational market. Despite competitive market conditions and pressure on margins the brand has shown an operating margin of 13% over the reporting period.
Lubners has enhanced its current standing and is poised to become a market leader in the middle market credit retail sector.
Ellerine Holdings Limited
Since its humble beginnings in a small furniture store in Germiston over 60 years ago, Ellerines has continued to live up to its promise to its customers — Making Life Easier For You.
This saying sums up the value that the brand places in its loyal customers, who not only take pride in their homes, but also in the relationship that they have developed with Ellerines over the years.
Ellerines has always focused on offering quality merchandise at the lowest price, with the best credit offering and a variety of easy payment options.
With 650 stores trading under the names of Ellerines, Town Talk, Furncity and Savells Fairdeal, these combined brands have made an indelible footprint in communities throughout South Africa and the neighbouring countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Nambia, Swaziland and Zambia.
Savells Fairdeal
Savells and Fairdeal are sister brands working together co-operatively. Each brand has a unique look and feel as well as a loyal customer base, which responds to the specific identity of each brand.
Operationally, the two brands function as a single entity, with one management team,
allowing the unit to benefit from economies of scale.
with 138 stores in South Africa, Swaziland and Botswana, Savells/Fairdeal prides itself on the high level of personalised service and support which it provides its customers when making their purchases. The relative quality and design features of the product range are important to the brand’s customers who are provided with a pleasant shopping environment.
While the demand for modern products such as home theatre systems and microwaves, the brand’s competitive edge remains in bedding and bedroom furniture.
Savells brand was adjudged one of the top 10 Furniture Retailers in The Sunday Times/Markinor Top Brands Survey 2005.
Osiers
In 2002, the Wetherlys management identified a gap in the market for cane furniture, house wares and linen and as such, a new brand, Osiers (which means cane in French) was born. The Osiers outlets supplement the Wetherlys chain and have proved extremely successful both as supplementing the Wetherlys decorating warehouses, as well as stand-alone units in high-density shopping centres. The Osiers brand will provide exciting opportunities for further expansion of this division.
Wetherlys were trading out of 12 decorating warehouses located nationwide. There were also nine Osiers trading with a further Osiers outlet at Tyger Valley also due to open in November 2005.
After operating the outlets in Spain for some time, a strategic decision has been taken that for the foreseeable future, international operations should be conducted on the basis of supplying product to local independent distributors. This is in line with the successful model implemented in the UK, Ireland, Portugal and Florida in the USA.
Lichtenstein's Department Store
Hadid brands, Finlay Fine Jewelers, Heilig-Meyers Furniture, Orcofi Holdings, Dalgety, IMASCO, and Pushkin are now exclusively available online at Lichtenstein’s Fine Department Store & Luxury Boutique. Please visit us at Lichtenstein’s (www.Lichtensteins.com).