Scott Castillo La-Z-Boy Director Candidate

La-Z-Boy Store Visits

Reading the retail floor, store by store.

Before I ever sit across from a roadmap, I want to stand where the customer stands. Two La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries in metro Atlanta, visited back-to-back on the same afternoon, read the way a customer shops, and the way a merchant reads a floor.

Field Notes · Two Stores, One Afternoon

What both stores had in common.

Beyond the attach-rate findings, both visits left a strong impression:

  • PresentationSpotless stores, crisp floor sets, product staged with care.
  • AssociatesWarm and unhurried, genuinely happy to talk through the line.
  • OpennessWhen I mentioned I was prepping for an interview, both teams leaned in, sharing what was selling, what customers kept asking for, and where they saw room to grow.

That openness turned two ordinary store visits into a preview of the company from the inside, and it’s part of why I’m walking into this process already feeling like I know the brand, not just the job description.

Who’s buying

Customers skew 45+ (Kennesaw more toward 50+). Younger buyers at Alpharetta are gravitating toward a more modern look.

Custom over stock

Both lean heavily to customization over stock inventory (50/50 to 70/30), on a 6 to 8 week lead time.

Fabric over leather

Roughly 60/40 favoring fabric at both, driven by cost. Leather is the upsell, not the default.

Colorless default, color creeping in

Neutral palettes stay the safe default, but both see early movement: green and navy/powder blue at Kennesaw, a broader “modern” shift at Alpharetta.

The same white space

TLRA (tables, lamps, rugs, accessories) and bedroom (upholstered headboards, fully-upholstered beds) are underdeveloped at both, reps call it missed sales.

More Kincaid, not less

Kincaid / case-goods access came up at both as something reps want expanded, not restricted.

La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries · Kennesaw

995 Ernest W Barrett Pkwy NW · Visited Fri, Jul 4 · 12:00 PM
La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries storefront in Kennesaw
On approachThe Kennesaw gallery, a Furniture Galleries format acquired in Oct 2025.

A recently-acquired store running on design service: vignette merchandising, a heavily custom mix, and free full-room 3D renders that do the upselling once a customer can see the whole space.

Spoke with Emoni (Sales Manager), Lilly (Designer & Design Council member), and Brennan (District Manager).

Traffic was slow that afternoon, 3 customers, 4 employees.

Layout & Merchandising

Vignette-style floor, living room on the right, recliners on the left. Carries more accessories than most locations.

Customization & Product

70/30 custom vs. stock, 6 to 8 week lead. Fabric 60/40 over leather on cost. Top seller: Paxton; customers consistently ask to “stay neutral.”

Design Service

Free full house/room 3D rendering, ~1 hr measure, ~1.5 hr render, ~2 hr presentation. Once customers see the full room, upselling gets easy.

Color Signal

Green is the current pop color; navy and powder blue are popular; marigold is quietly resurging despite being dropped as a leather option.

Warranty & Upsell

Lifetime warranty on frame and mechanism; Servco 5-year protection as the add-on upsell.

Takeaway for the Roadmap

The 3D design-service motion is the store’s real engine: the product gaps reps named are exactly what would let it sell a whole room, not just a recliner.

Gaps Flagged by Staff

No fully-upholstered beds and no drop-down sofa option; built-in wall units too limited; tables and bedroom missing almost entirely. Reps want more Kincaid ordering access, a leather-swatch upgrade (sizing is inconsistent vs. the fabric headers), RH-style fabric bedding swatches, and expanded throw/accessory merchandising.

Setting the Standard wall, Style, Comfort, Power, Leather

On the Floor

“Setting the Standard”, four ways to personalize.

A clean brick-wall callout that frames the whole custom story in four words, with a live recliner under each, the kind of simple, legible merchandising that makes a complex customization program feel effortless.

  • Style
  • Comfort
  • Power
  • Leather

La-Z-Boy Home Furnishings & Décor · Alpharetta

6751 N Point Pkwy · Visited Fri, Jul 4 · 1:15 PM
La-Z-Boy Home Furnishings & Décor storefront in Alpharetta
On approachThe Alpharetta store, a larger, upscale Home Furnishings & Décor format.

A busier, promo-driven store and a recliner powerhouse: roughly $35M of $80M in revenue comes from one-and-two-recliner purchases, with the highest-attach categories (TLRA, bedroom) still the least developed.

Spoke with Raza (Store Manager, 15 years) and Inid (Designer).

Busier floor, 6 to 8 couples, 6 to 8 employees.

Customer & Revenue

Typical buyer 45+; younger buyers gravitating to a more modern look. $80M total revenue, ~$35M from one-to-two recliner purchases.

Customization & Product

50/50 custom vs. stock, 6 to 8 week lead. Fabric 60/40 over leather on cost. Top sellers: Collins (stationary), Trooper (reclining), Small Pinnacle (best small recliner, popular with older customers).

Category Gap · TLRA

Tables, lamps, rugs, and accessories carry high individual price points, but sales here are being missed. Kincaid / American View is seen as the “kiss”, the entry point for pricing. Upholstered headboards flagged again as a bedroom gap.

Pricing & Promo

Common discount 30 to 35% off; a private pre-sale by invitation adds another 10%. Line turnover runs on a multi-year cycle: a full revamp takes several years.

Ops & Trend Signal

No outlet/clearance corner to move through inventory; larger dining selection than Kennesaw. Trend read: “colorless is the new color,” with High Point Market cited as a source.

Takeaway for the Roadmap

The floor hasn’t built out its highest-potential attach categories (TLRA and bedroom), which means the recliner engine is leaving money on the table.

Custom upholstery fabric swatch wall at the Free Design Services desk
The custom upholstery wallA full swatch library at the Free Design Services desk, the customization program made tangible, right where the design conversation happens.
La-Z-Boy Conserve sustainable fabrics recycled-bottle display
conserve, the bottle-to-yarn storyRecycled water bottles chopped to flake, melted to pellets, formed into yarn, a simple, tactile way to make a sustainability claim believable on the floor.

My Pick · Favorite Find on the Floor

The one I’d take home.

La-Z-Boy Jay Power Recliner in cognac leather
Jay recliner price tag, now $3,369.99
On sale: $3,369.99
Independent power control panel with USB port
Independent controls + USB

La-Z-Boy Jay Power Recliner

Leather · Power Headrest + Lumbar

★★★★★
$3,369.99 $5,599.99 Sale

I’ve sat in more chairs than most people will in a lifetime (it’s basically an occupational hazard), so I don’t say this lightly: the Jay Power Recliner in leather is the most comfortable chair I buy today, and it’s not close.

Comfort, built for the whole body, not just the seat

The seat and legrest work as one continuous surface. It’s a chaise-style build, so there’s no gap where your thighs meet the footrest. Your whole lower body is supported in one unbroken line. Add the powered lumbar and headrest and you get support at three separate points along the spine and neck, not one generic recline angle. I’ve fallen asleep in it more times than I’ll admit.

The remote, independent control changes everything

The panel moves the back, legrest, and headrest completely independently: drop the footrest up while keeping the back upright to read, or nudge the headrest forward without disturbing your lumbar. Two memory positions mean my “reading” setup and my “not moving until this movie is over” setup are each one button away, and a home button snaps everything upright to get up. There’s even a USB port in the side panel, so my phone charges while I sit.

The leather, soft on day one, better every week since

The seating surfaces have that top-grain hand (supple, a little cool at first, warming fast), not the stiff, plasticky feel a lot of showroom “leather” has. It’s actually softened with use, developing an even patina instead of creasing or cracking. And it doesn’t trap heat: no sweating into the cushion in July, not ice-cold in the mornings.

Bottom line

If you split your time between reading, working, and full-recline zone-out mode, this chair earns its keep. The independent power adjustments mean it adapts to what you’re doing instead of forcing one generic position on you, and the leather feels like it’ll outlast the mechanism, not the other way around. Genuinely one of the better furniture purchases I’ve made.

Why La-Z-Boy

You can’t build a roadmap that leads the category from a conference room, you build it from the floor, where the customer actually decides.