Nationwide Buying Group Meeting

I just returned from our Nationwide Buying Group meeting, and it was a great show. The group is a powerful organization that allows strong local companies like Sherman's to compete with the big national retailers. When we pool our buying power, we're ranked in the top ten nationally, right up there with Best Buy, Lowe's, and the rest of the big chains. Plus, the group has a great depth of resources that help us stay on top of the latest trends; whether it's top-notch training programs for our sales and delivery staff, or strategies to keep our costs low so we can continue offering the best prices. The theme of our meeting was "Your Road Ahead," and it was all about continuing to compete with the national chains on price while maintaining long-term knowledgeable sales and delivery staff in this challenging economy. It's a unique but powerful combination, and one that we can only accomplish through the collective power of our Nationwide Buying Group!

Viking now at Sherman’s

The complete line of Viking performance appliances is now available at Sherman's! The Viking name is synonymous with professional cooking for the home. In addition to Viking's commercial quality cooking products, they offer a complete line of refrigerators and dishwashers to complete your kitchen. As with all the products we carry, you can be confident you'll pay the same or less for Viking at Sherman's. In fact, you can buy a complete Viking kitchen, including the pro range, refrigerator, dishwasher, and microwave for under $10,000 right now at Sherman's! If you're building or remodeling and want to cook with professional results, stop in Sherman's to see the complete Viking line.

What people are saying about Sherman’s

We give each delivery customer a comment sheet that comes straight to my desk, so I hear quickly if we're not doing something right. But the vast majority of the comments are more like the one pictured here:

"I am constantly amazed at how willing they are to go above & beyond expectations. Had a refrigerator delivered a few months ago - they cleaned the sticker residue off my glass shelves! They were just as wonderful with this delivery."

"Jim is absolutely the best ! He is a big part of why Sherman's is the only place we'll shop. We really appreciate his knowledge, honesty, and his ability to assess our family's needs and find a product that is a perfect match."

Or here is an email I received last week:

"I want to thank Sherman's for the quality of staff that they have. We just had a Sub Zero refrigerator delivered and installed yesterday. The delivery team, Matt & Tommy, were very friendly, professional, and helpful. They went above and beyond and really seemed to care. We really, really appreciate it."

It's a pleasure for our whole team to read comments like these, and it motivates us to get better and better at what we do. On behalf of all our employees in Peoria, Normal, and Peru, THANK YOU for your business!

Samsung LED HDTV’s now at Sherman’s

A lot has changed recently in HDTV's. The latest technology is LED; which just a few months ago was incredibly expensive. But recent price moves by Samsung and LG have made this new technology relatively affordable. All LCD TV's have a Liquid Crystal panel that lets light through to create the image. Traditional LCD sets are backlit by a continuous brightness source, similar to fluorescent light bulbs. The new LED backlit sets have a brighter backlight that is capable of varying the brightness, so the whites can be brighter, and the blacks blacker (a traditional weakness of LCD). Plus, the LED backlight is tremendously thin; making possible stunning styling like Samsung's new models. You'll find the best selection of Samsung's new LED models at Sherman's; stop in today and I think you'll agree, these are the most stunning HDTV's you've seen!

Delivering It Right

Delivery is one of the most important services Sherman's provides. After all, what good are knowledgeable salespeople & great service if the delivery crew doesn't show up when expected or treat your home right? At Sherman's we're constantly working to improve our delivery service. We start with an experienced team of warehouse professionals, who understand how important it is to treat the merchandise with care, and thoroughly inspect and prepare every customer order. Then our professional delivery crews take over. They are all participants in our "Delivering it Right" program, where they track their performance on the three most important aspects of delivery: (1) installing the items in the home with no damage, (2) accurate paperwork and customer review, and (3) everything loaded accurately on the truck. Any issues are covered in a weekly meeting, where everyone has the opportunity to suggest improvements in our procedures or get training on new products and techniques. A customer recently summed it up well: "Your delivery men treated my home as if it were theirs." That's the kind of delivery you can expect when you make a purchase at Sherman's.

A $1499 Mattress for only $799?

Some retailers throw inflated "retail price" out there to suggest you're saving hundreds of dollars at their "sale" price, when in fact they never sell anything at the "retail" price. I wouldn't blame you if you're skeptical when you hear Sherman's has a "$1,499 mattress" on sale at $799, so I'll explain. Our best Sealy Posturepedic mattress over the last 6 months is a model with traditional springs plus a pillow-top of latex and memory foam, and it's been a best seller at $1,499 for a queen set. It's so popular because it delivers the benefits of pressure-relieving foam, yet has the support and reliability of a traditional steel spring system. But with the economy the way it has been, fewer people this year have been spending that much on a bed; whether they need it or not for good sleep, when money's tight it can be tough to spend $1,500. So in April, we offered Sealy an order of three solid truckloads of this bed, in whatever color they had available, at a greatly reduced price so we could offer them at only $799. When business was booming for Sealy nationally they wouldn't have been able to accommodate us; but lucky for our customers they said yes this time! The result is we have the exact same bed we've been selling for $1,499 at only $799; the only difference is a different color cover (if you like the original cover better, it's still available for the $700 extra!). We're working through the second truckload right now, and at this rate we'll be out soon. Shop and compare; I think you'll agree there isn't a bed available anywhere that compares at this price.

A $499 Washer that pays for itself!

I’ve talked before about how much you can save with a high efficiency Energy Star washer. But until now, the price of entry was usually $699, $999 or more. So you can understand our excitement to have GE’s new high efficiency, top-load machine at only $499! If you visit the E-Star website below, and calculate the savings between your average $399 washer and this $499 unit, you’ll see it saves you nearly $50 per year. So the additional $100 is paid back in just over two years, with hundreds of dollars to be saved over the remaining life of the unit. And that doesn’t count the money you save on clothes, because high efficiency machines treat your clothes better, giving you longer life from every clothing item you own. And last but certainly not least, the environment benefits from lower water and energy usage in your home. So when you add it all up, if you have a non-energy star machine at home now, it pays to replace it even if it’s working fine; it literally pays for itself and more over the life of the unit! See the new GE line of high efficiency washers at Sherman’s today.
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=clotheswash.pr_clothes_washers