West Bend Firm Grows by Selling Refurished Products

05/27/2009

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As companies continue to look for ways to keep costs down and commit to environmentally sound practices, JL Business Interiors Inc. is capitalizing by selling refurbished office interiors as its inventory keeps growing from failed or shrinking businesses.

“A lot of products out in the market shouldn’t end up in the landfill, but so much of it does,” said Jeff Lambie, president and co-owner of the West Bend firm. “We have a lot of inventory right here that still has a lot of life to it.” Lambie said there are more used products available due to the economic downturn, which has forced many Milwaukee-area companies to either close or to cut back on staff.

Selling refurbished furniture, cubicles and panel systems has always been a component of the 15-year-old company’s sales strategy, with 40 percent of its sales from products that have been painted, recovered or repaired. Another 50 percent of sales comes from new interior products, with less than 10 percent used products, some sold on consignment.

A $5 million project from West Bend Mutual Insurance Co. in 2008 bumped the company’s sales to $9.3 million compared with $4.2 million in 2007. Lambie said he expects sales to be near $5 million for 2009, with the most growth coming in the area of refurbished interior products.

“We’ve been using refurbished wall panels for years and have no reservations about it,” said Randy Stark, director of facilities for West Bend Mutual Insurance Co. “When Jeff’s group gets done with it, they’re virtually new.”
Catherine Prossen, president of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Wisconsin chapter, said local designers are seeing a growth in the number of customers who are buying refurbished furniture to save money during the current economic slowdown.

“It is something people are taking into consideration,” she said. “Typically, no one would know the difference between new and refurbished.” Lambie, 52, and his wife, Karen, launched JL Business Interiors in 1994 in the garage and basement of their West Bend home. A former salesman for an office products company in Stevens Point in the 1980s and 1990s, Lambie believed he could use his former customers as a starting base for the firm.

After taking a year off to work with a furniture broker, he started to contact past clients.With little or no startup costs, the company had sales of nearly $40,000 within six months and moved into a commercial space in downtown West Bend. By the end of the first year, JL had sales in excess of $100,000 and inventory in four warehouses with a combined
square footage of 7,500.

In 2000, the company moved to its current location, which includes 30,000 square feet of office, showroom and warehouse space. The firm employs 21 full-time and 8 part-time employees.

Full-service offerings Unlike national office retailers such as Staples or Office Depot, Lambie describes his business as being able to offer everything from design services to sourcing the product to installation and follow up service. Among his new and refurbished product lines are Steelcase
Inc., Herman Miller Inc., and Evolve Furniture Group, a product line made from 100 percent recycled material.
Despite a slow first quarter in 2009, Lambie sees growth coming over the next several months from segments such as education, health care and government.

John Torinus, chairman of Serigraph Inc., a West Bend printing firm, used the company to outfit 25,000 square feet of office space at a plant Serigraph built in 1996.
“We used all refurbished furniture and it worked out great,” said Torinus, who estimated the company spent $150,000 on interiors for the project, less than half of what it would have if Serigraph had purchased new products. Lambie “knows how to source used equipment and he’s highly responsive,” Torinus said. “We were always pretty careful with our capital expenditures, and even though it was a young company, (Lambie) sold us and he did such a good job we’ve used him ever since."