For Brian Morgan, owner of Couch Potatoes Furniture & Mattress Stores, standing out in a crowd is the company’s collective mission. On Saturday (Aug. 31), Couch Potatoes & Mattress Stores unveiled a pioneering retail and manufacturing concept in Austin, Texas.
The company opened a 100,000-square-foot flagship store that marked the debut of the first U.S. furniture brand to integrate a factory within its retail space, offering customers a live view of couch production. Couch Potatoes, which offers 70+ fabrics and 15+ Italian leather options, ships nationwide, and consumers can order free swatches on the website.
The launch reflects Couch Potatoes’ commitment to continuous improvement and community engagement. Special discounts will be available at Austin locations and online, celebrating this new approach to integrating craftsmanship and retail.
In an interview with PYMNTS, Morgan discussed the inspiration behind this new retail and manufacturing concept.
“We run toward the storm like buffalo. Sounds funny, but our company was faced with many headwinds,” he said. “Rising rents, major big box store competition arriving to our metro, and we needed to set ourselves apart and stay true to our principles of loving people and bringing comfort and do the impossible.”
Morgan said that the words “made fresh” belong on the store’s front door.
“We aren’t importing cookie-cutter furniture, and we aren’t spending fortunes on freight,” he said. “Everything is made to order fresh. We want to constantly improve, and I believe if we pull the curtains back and allow our customer base to understand the artistry behind building a couch, they will appreciate the quality we turn out and connect the furniture to the factory workers: ‘These are real humans in my city building my couch.’ We want to improve continuously. This factory ‘stage’ will force us to do that very thing. I want our furniture to be known for its superior quality. We will get there, one improvement at a time.”
Additionally, the Labor Day Weekend event launched the “Mattress Hero” program, which provides a mattress to a child in need for every mattress purchased.
“Our customers are the heroes — through their purchases, they bring rest to someone in need and spread the habit of giving within our community,” Morgan said.
Beating the odds is something Morgan relishes.
“In 2018, we had so many doubters that we would ever build furniture with zero experience, zero talent, and very little capital to work with,” he said. “But we did it. We have always been scrappy and have had to find our way into the market in non-traditional ways. My mind has always operated on, ‘I’m stuck on an island, I have limited resources, what do I do to survive?’ So, we run completely against the grain of the trend. We are innovators, disrupters and just the operators of this business that God has entrusted us with. We pray weekly and give our business to God to use it as He sees fit. It’s all His.”
At Couch Potatoes, the integration of retail and manufacturing functions elevates the customer experience.
“It’s like that ASMR channel you follow on YouTube, and now you can be a part of it in the store,” Morgan said. “Sewing machines, framers’ nail guns, robotic cutting, table humming. Revolutionary retail experiences like this one are reminding people that retail can be exciting and fun. I hope it inspires future generations that they can take pride in taking a career in manufacturing. Austin, Texas, is really on the brink of a resurgence of manufacturing.”
An advantage to this model, Morgan noted, is being able to sell quality furniture comparable to some of the biggest manufacturers in the country at lower price points. For example, Morgan noted a nationally known furniture retailer builds an 8-foot leather sofa that sells between $6,000-$7,000.
“We are happily producing similar quality with no upcharge for a leather 8-foot couch, with a lifetime warranty on the frame, for $3,600,” Morgan said. “You can save thousands shopping this way. We are putting the factory where the customer is, and that means real-time feedback and tweaks can be made in the moment. The freshest design trends can be introduced in a day versus waiting for the trends to hit the big box store. I’m anxiously waiting to learn more benefits as we go and, on the flip side, there could be some unrealized challenges we will face. Either way we will have fun, because we have the best team on the planet that just does big things.”
Operationally speaking, Morgan wanted as little down time as possible before the new store opened.
“We closed the previous retailer in this building on July 29, and we completely flipped the store, installed the factory in three weeks, set up the store over the last week, and opened Aug. 30,” he said. “Our factory barely skipped a beat. This work family is used to being quick on their feet. They love to work hard and believe in the brand.”
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