Safavieh doubles warehouse space   

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 1/11/2008 11:38:00 AM

Port Washington, N.Y. – Upscale are rug company Safavieh recently more than doubled its warehouse space in Pennsylvania with the purchase of a 320,000-square-foot facility.

The new site, located in Easton, is a supplement to the company’s existing 250,000-square-foot facility in Allentown. The expanded capacity is intended to help the company, based here, stock rugs and furniture for quick-ship delivery.

New capacity is needed because of sales growth, based on substantial sales increases in 2006 and 2007 as well as forecasted growth for this year. Another factor contributing to the expansion is Safavieh’s rapidly growing furniture program. Marketed as the American Home Furniture Collection, this division has grown from offering occasional seating and accent pieces when it was launched in January 2006 to now include full-scale upholstered programs, leather programs, a loft line for furniture shops within retail stores, and the introduction at the upcoming January 2008 Las Vegas Market of leather recliners and several bedroom and dining room suites.

“We have experienced significant sales increases since the launch of our Thomas O’Brien and Martha Stewart licensed rug collections, and in the past year demand for Safavieh programmed rug collections has broken records in all retail channels,” said Arash Yaraghi, company principal. “The new facility will allow us room to expand our current portfolio of designer collections in 2008.”

Yaraghi said that the new Easton warehouse is equipped with state-of-the-art rug rack systems and is designed with separate sections for furniture storage.