Office furniture resale company opens Danbury store, capitalizes on pandemic ‘work from home’
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DANBURY — Just after millions of employees were being abruptly informed they’d be doing work from home indefinitely two a long time ago, Russell Castro’s cellphone began to ring.
Alternatively of substantial firms calling to purchase high-close office environment household furniture from his business liquidation and resale organization, he was finding inquiries from people today looking for an cost-effective way to furnish their new — and usually makeshift — household places of work.
With the modify in demand from customers, he started off searching into lesser retail merchants to fulfill unique clients’ demands.
Dependent in North Brunswick, N.J., OFIS Household furniture started off internet hosting pop-up retail locations in Lengthy Island, Pennsylvania, and New York, and opened a long-lasting retail locale in Florida. On the very first cold weekend in March, Russell Castro opened a second retail locale in Danbury with the help of his brother, Rick Castro, who manages the retail outlet.
“They’re knowing that they’re heading to be performing from residence a ton for a longer time now or forever, and they want to ‘up’ their business furnishings for their property,” Russell Castro, president of OFIS Household furniture claimed. “It was in fact hundreds of thousands of staff members that ended up working from property in the total tri-point out spot, so our sector pool was substantially much larger now. But we were only doing just one chair at a time.”
Rick Castro life in New Fairfield and runs compact organizations in the space. He realized the retail landscape and considered Danbury would be a prime spot for a retail workplace.
“It’s actually performing out properly between us from both of those our experiences, from my becoming in the outside the house retail entire world to cope with these varieties of places and with his understanding with the furnishings and the wants that he sees out there,” Rick Castro reported. “I assume we’re a wonderful group jointly in that regard.”
Trucks make the two-hour trek from New Jersey to Danbury when a 7 days, hauling the items acquired in the city’s newest home furnishings keep.
“We pull from Hartford, we pull from Stamford, Norwalk. People today coming from all about Connecticut,” Rick Castro mentioned.
The retail store, situated in Plumtrees Plaza, draws customers from Fairfield, Hartford and Litchfield counties.
Rick Castro commonly asks men and women stopping in exactly where they came from since he normally gets different answers. So much, he’s achieved buyers from Westport, Darien, Hartford, East Hartford and Simsbury.
Russell Castro stated that most individuals who occur into the retail retail store or access out to OFIS have “done their homework” and know what they’re hunting for. That is aspect of the rationale people today are eager to push so considerably.
He’s had a whole lot of requests for “soft seating”— a new phrase Rick uncovered, that refers to waiting around place home furnishings — for equally new office environment spaces and their own residences.
“They’ll push an hour when your chair is $350 in the retail outlet,” Russell Castro claimed.
People today appear in content, and they wander out joyful, Rick Castro stated.
Discovering a area of interest
OFIS satisfies a pretty precise need to have in a publish-pandemic globe: self-sourced, price-effective business household furniture.
“The difficulty with that is they get sticker shock,” Russell Castro mentioned, of staff attempting to furnish a proper property office.
Anyone could want the very same chair they were being making use of at their place of work, only to know it costs thousands of pounds. Which is the place OFIS comes in. They can get that $1,200 chair for $350, Castro stated.
OFIS has also capitalized on worldwide supply chain struggles as folks head again into work and re-imagine workplace spaces. Two many years into the pandemic, some firms have downsized or developed satellite places of work. Some have scrapped non-public place of work layouts for open up convention rooms. Since OFIS resources all its possess home furnishings from liquidating workplaces, clients don’t have to wait for months on finish to get their arms on the home furniture.
The firm title pretty actually serves as an acronym for what they promise: “Office Furnishings In Inventory.”
“The furniture is likely to be 6 months, eight months, 10 months out, and that’s been a major trouble for a whole lot of folks furnishing places of work. Which is why they are also flocking to us, because we are personal source chain — I clean out all these properties, I have all the household furniture in inventory,” Russell Castro claimed. “We’re capable to fill that void, as very well, for individuals to get in into their workplaces, get them furnished speedily.”
OFIS has countless numbers of chairs, cubicles, conference room furniture, and reception region home furniture completely ready to find a new house. These times, they are clearing out all 49 floors of Deutsche Bank’s Manhattan places of work.
You can only picture how numerous hundreds and thousands of chairs and personal offices and cubicles that is, Russell Castro claimed.
When he desires of one particular day increasing OFIS to turn out to be a household name with franchises across the tri-condition area and broader United States, Russell Castro is centered on acquiring the Danbury place up and working with his brother.
“We healthy a need to have,” he reported, “helping individuals get out of their dining area chair, their aching backs, and placing them into the proper furnishings, and [it’s] truly economical.”
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