Feizy acquires new facility outside of Dallas

DALLAS — Strong and steady growth has led Feizy Rugs to seek out a new home to keep up with the momentum.

In late June, the Dallas-based rug manufacturer purchased a 175,000-square-foot former IBM call center in the nearby suburb of Farmers Branch with plans to expand and convert it into a new corporate headquarters and distribution center.

It will continue to maintain a year-round showroom in the Dallas Design District and has no plans to sell its current facility or warehouse.

“We’ve got a lot of momentum across all of our channels, which has created the need for more space,” said Leah Feizy, a principal of the company. “We welcomed more than 30 people to our team, including our sales and marketing leadership, and our ecommerce team is growing. Our year-over-year sales growth is strong. We have to have more room to grow — it’s a good problem to have.”

Over the past year or so, Feizy has introduced and refined a number of services designed to better serve its customer base and grow business. Among those are a new Smart Rewards initiative that incentivizes rug sales at the retail level with a reloadable prepaid Visa card, its Total Care stain protection warranty program and its new ladder-based visual merchandising system.

“We’ve done a lot of work to differentiate our products and services by our customer segments,” Feizy said. “We’ve worked hard to provide best in class product and service in each segment.”

In its new home, Feizy officials feel that commitment will grow stronger. Feizy said once completed the company’s warehouse footprint will grow by 30% not counting the additional vertical room created by higher ceilings. The first floor will also include space for a photography studio as well as a showroom.

The second floor will house office space, bringing the entire team into one structure. Feizy said currently, the team is split between two connected buildings.

“Right now, even though our offices are across a bridge that’s a few steps away from our main warehouse, it’s exciting to have the entire core team under one roof,” she said. “We’ll be able to collaborate better and be more efficient. It’s nice to be in daily contact with everybody. It fosters the sense of family that we love here.”

Plans are in place to be in the new facility as soon as the fourth quarter of 2016. Feizy said the facility was a warehouse before IBM converted it to a state-of-the-art call center with an advanced IT infrastructure already in place. She said work like reopening dock doors that had been walled off are among the major tasks that remain.

And as the move-in date approaches, Feizy said the move will be completed in stages in order to ensure the process takes place without disrupting business.

“The plan is to transition strategically over the next few months,” Feizy said. “This current space has been our home for more than 20 years, and we want to take care of our new home. We want to create this new home and make it right for us. We also want to make sure when we transition fully there is no interruption of service for our customers.”