The Bucks Are Big In Unfinished Furniture
                -Dick Youngblood, Mpls. Star Tribune Sunday, August 2,1998

 My image of the unpainted furniture business was shaped years ago by a pair of small pine desks I bought for a song to help my daughters in their pursuit of academic excellence.

 Before I could say "Go do your homework," however, the doors started falling off the dadblamed things, the seams began to give way and the drawers became obstreperous any time you opened or closed them.

 It is this image, of bargain prices and basement quality, that the Buck brothers - Randy, 55; Rich, 51; Roger, 49; and Ray, 47 - have been battling all their working lives.

 They've succeeded well enough to build their Bloomington company, Buck's Unpainted Furniture, Inc., into a small retail chain that last year generated about $5 million in sales, arguably the largest ready-to-finish operation in the metro area.

Proof of that contention is hard to find in a privately held business, but a 1995 report by Scarborough Research Corp. showed that 4 percent of the adults surveyed shopped at Buck's, compared with 5 percent at Gabberts and 7 percent at Wickes.

 Buck's has reached that level of success, the brothers contend, not with bargain-basement products, but with quality and price that add up to value.

Partial to wood

"We sell wood - solid wood," said Randy Buck, a passionate promoter of the ready-to-finish industry who actually seems to speak in italics when he warms to the subject.

 When buying inventory, he said, "the first thing we look at is the quality. Is it furniture we'd have in our own homes?"

 Translation: Virtually no particle board or similar composites are to be found in Buck's furniture, which tends toward oak, maple and pine. And when large pieces such as an entertainment center do contain plywood, "it's top-quality plywood," Roger Buck said.

By comparison, "I can take you into a furniture store and show you all kinds of product that contains no wood at all," Randy Buck said. "It's plastic or particle board with vinyl or contact paper to make it look like wood."

 You don't have to take the Bucks' word for the quality of their products. Despite generating a fraction of the $1 billion in annual unfinished-furniture sales, "Buck's is known throughout the industry as a well-run operation that's very concerned about quality," said Susan Samter, sales manager for Whittier Wood Products in Eugene, Ore. Whittier is one of the country's largest manufacturers of ready-to-finish furniture.

 In fact, the Bloomington company's reputation is so solid, Samter said, that manufacturers occasionally find it helpful to tell a prospective customer that "Buck's is carrying it in the Twin Cities."

 Dan Khoury, CEO of Khoury Inc., a large furniture maker in Iron Mountain, Mich., agreed with that assessment: "It helps if you've got a new product and you can get Buck's to carry it," he said. "To other retailers, that means the [product] has good quality and [salability]."

The Bucks have stores in Bloomington, Minnetonka, St. Paul and Inver Grove Heights. The first new store in 10 years is scheduled to open this fall in Maplewood.

Passing the presidency

That Buck's, which was started in 1960 by the brothers' parents, has survived and thrived in a narrow, ill-regarded corner of the furniture business isn't the only unusual aspect of this yarn, however.

There's also the relationship of the principals, which gives new meaning to the notion of sibling sharing: The brothers take turns being president, each serving a three-year term as spokesman for the company before turning the title over the the next sibling.

 "The law says we have to have a president," said Ray Buck, who currently occupies the office. "But it doesn't pay any better, and you sure don't get any more respect."

 More important, the company has been operated for nearly 25 years as an equal partnership, Rich Buck said. The brothers have gravitated toward different areas of the business, with Rich serving as chief financial officer, Ray handling information systems and inventory control, Randy running the St. Paul store and Roger managing the Bloomington outlet. Rich and Ray handle most of the purchasing.

 "We've never had a major conflict," Rich Buck said. "On any key decision, we'll work for a consensus or we won't do it."

All of which is not to say there haven't been disagreements.

 "Sometimes we bite our tongues," Rich said.

"And sometimes we don't," added the outspoken Randy.

"But we all have the same goal - success," said Ray.

 "And we trust each other," said Roger.

There's nothing like a gang interview to produce a bevy of stimulating quotes, I always say.

 Despite the lingering notion that unpainted furniture ranks just above orange crates in terms of quality, the Bucks have convinced customers that high-quality unfinished products can be superior to similar-quality factory-finished goods.

The pitch: If customers want it factory-finished, they get a choice of maybe three or four colors. But if they buy it unfinished, they can have any color they want.

 "[At Buck's] you could pick a table, chairs and hutch from three different manufacturers and have them finished in exactly the same color," Randy Buck said - "the color you want, not the one the factory tells you you want."

Or, the company can finish furniture to match what's already in a customer's house, he said.

About 70 percent of the Bucks' sales are unfinished. The rest are finished items for which there is demand, but that cannot easily be obtained in unfinished form. Of the 70 percent, about 40 percent is finished in the Buck's shops, at a cost of $35 for a chair, $75 for a chest of drawers and $150 to $200 for an armoire.

 For the do-it-yourselfers among their customers, the Bucks figure they can offer upwards of 20 to 30 percent savings over stores offering comparable finished products. The margin narrows considerably if the company does the finishing; still, the brothers estimate that they can provide a savings.

Whatever the attraction, the most eye-fetching statistic has to do with a breakdown to the Bucks' clientele: By their estimate, upwards of 60 percent of their volume is generated by repeat customers.

--Dick Youngblood has retired as a full-time member of the Star Tribune staff, but will continue writing a Sunday column on a freelance basis. He can be contacted by mail at the Star Tribune, by calling 673-4439 and leaving a message, by fax at 673-7122 or by e-mailing him at yblood@startribune.com.

VISIT ANY OF OUR 3 UNFINISHED FURNITURE STORE LOCATIONS.