Homepage photo: В©Michael Flippo/Adobe Stock But in todayвЂ™s market, youвЂ™d better have a brand strategy. What does all of this activity suggest? Wherever the brands come from, and however retailers use them, they are important vehicles for selling home furnishings products-and thereвЂ™s no one right way to do it. This is a significant departure from their previous positioning of the store itself as a brand, with only very limited third-party names, usually in selected categories like housewares or rugs. Though these are often interior designers, they are also sometimes celebrities-as with CB2вЂ™s partnership with Gwyneth PaltrowвЂ™s Goop brand.

В» Over in the lifestyle channel, just about every major player-Pottery Barn and West Elm (both part of Williams-Sonoma) Crate & Barrel and CB2 and Anthropologie (which is owned by Urban Outfitters)-has been bringing in collections from outside names. Earlier this year, the retailer also did a limited-run home collection from LeviвЂ™s. One of its more high-profile programs in home right now is an exclusively licensed sub-brand from Chip and Joanna GainesвЂ™s Magnolia Home. В» Target, too, has a mix of brand origins, though it relies heavily on its own names, notably Threshold. And it continues the mash-up mix of private label (Hotel, INC), captured brands (Martha Stewart), and licensed names (Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein) that the department store employs. ItвЂ™s a curious choice given that brandвЂ™s diminished stature in fashion, particularly with younger shoppers. В» In the meantime, MacyвЂ™s announced it would be introducing a furnishings collection under the Anne Klein brand, putting a venerable apparel label into the home space for the first time. For Gap, itвЂ™s a major expansion into new categories (though some old-timers may remember that the company owned a home retailer some 40 years ago by the name of Pottery Barn, before selling it to Williams-Sonoma). В» Moving in the opposite direction is Walmart, which is introducing a home program with Gap-an online-only collection at the moment, with plans to take the line into physical stores eventually. Four more programs are expected by early next year, and the retailer expects these brands to collectively account for a third of its sales, or as much as $3 billion, within three years.

Our Table is a mid-price-point kitchenware brand with more than 1,000 SKUs Wild Sage is a cross-category collection of hard and soft home products and Squared Away features storage, organizational and cleaning products. В» On Tuesday, Bed Bath & Beyond announced the second wave of its owned brand program, adding three more nameplates to the initial trio that debuted earlier this year. The latest round of brand introductions over the past few weeks alone shows the breadth of approaches retailers are taking:

If they evoke a feeling of familiarity somewhere in the recesses of the consumerвЂ™s mind, theyвЂ™re still of use. The fact that some of these names are past their prime is beside the point. Still a third strategy, employed by lifestyle retailers like West Elm, Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel, has seen these companies introduce limited-run capsule programs from celebrities, interior designers and other outside brands.ДЄs if that wasnвЂ™t enough, off-pricers like HomeGoods and Ross have focused on goods-sometimes overruns, but increasingly not-that feature well-known brands. Others, like MacyвЂ™s and Walmart, are increasingly relying on licensing names from other areas (often fashion) and using them on exclusive programs. Some national big-box retailers, like Target and Bed Bath & Beyond, have focused on private-label or owned brands-entities they control and sell without the need to pay third-party royalties. While most agree that brands are good things to have, there is a wide-and often wild-disparity in what to do with them. Rarely in the history of the home furnishings business has there been such a split in how retailers are approaching their branding strategies.

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