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PLATYPUS HAS GIFTS, FURNISHINGS AND BIG PLANS

By Kimberly Pfaff

Platypus has grown from a coffee shop to an eclectic home furnishings purveyor.

People never know quite what to expect when they come into Platypus. And that’s part of the appeal of this eclectic home furnishings, gifts and accessories store.

Not only are its offerings broad, but no two stores in the chain are identical.

Based in North Brunswick, N.J., the family-owned company offers everything from antique pine armoires, dinnerware, framed art and hand-forged iron beds to whole-bean coffee and Godiva chocolates — all presented with a hip, sophisticated sensibility.

Company President Jeffrey Schulman and his father, Dan, the CEO, have expanded Platypus from just one store in 1977 to a six-store East Coast regional chain that has expansion potential written all over it. Along the way, they’ve achieved annual sales of about $10 million and double-digit same-store sales growth.

“They really have been flexible and changed with the times,” said Matthew Klutznick, general manager of MarketFair, an upscale community center in West Windsor, N.J., just outside Princeton, that is host to a Platypus store.

“When we took over the mall in 1996, Platypus was basically a coffee shop with gourmet chocolates and picture frames,” Klutznick said. Since then, as the mall has developed a heavy emphasis on home furnishings, Platypus has kept pace and today offers mostly furniture — although it still sells the gourmet chocolates, coffee and knickknacks.

Klutznick noted that the store performs well above the mall average of $320 a square foot.

When the first Platypus store opened 25 years ago in East Brunswick, N.J., it was much more focused on housewares, along with the aforementioned coffee, chocolate and packaged specialty gourmet items such as salsas and crackers.

“Since then, we’ve really worked on the concept and tried to figure out who we wanted to be,” Jeffrey Schulman said.

What they’ve become is that most sought-after of retail concepts: a store that feels more like a one-of-a-kind shop than a chain. It’s no accident that each location also has its own individual feel and identity. “We’re able to tailor our merchandise mix to the individual locations and consumer requests. Since the layout of the stores is so flexible, we have almost nothing in the store that’s fixed in place, outside of the cash register desk,” Schulman said. “Our customers like [it] that our Princeton store is somewhat different from our stores in Marlton Square and The Grove at Shrewsbury, both in New Jersey.”

Adding to that individuality is the fact that you really won’t find many of Platypus’s goods in other stores. Much of the company’s merchandise is either private-label or custom-made for Platypus by domestic suppliers.

To keep things even fresher, the merchandise continually changes, thanks to the company’s proprietary database program.

“We’re constantly looking at each individual [stockkeeping unit],” said Schulman. “We refer to it as ‘fishing.’”

But for all the changes, you can still find coffee and chocolates, and not just to be cute, either.

“It’s one of the things that distinguishes us from other retailers,” Schulman said. “We have customers who come in once a week, every week, for a pound of coffee and some chocolate. And when they’re here maybe they’ll remember that they need a gift, or they do some impulse shopping.”

Customers range from college students to retirees who are redoing a second home, but the typical Platypus shopper is about 35 to 55 and affluent; the average ticket is $75.

The company waited until 1985 to open its second unit, right in Manhattan’s prime SoHo shopping district. The store remained there until last June, when rents skyrocketed.

“We got caught in the New York real estate crunch,” explained Schulman. For all its expense, the store was too small for the chain, anyway — a mere 800 square feet upstairs and 400 square feet downstairs, compared with the typical 5,000-square-foot Platypus store.

But Platypus didn’t have a lot of luck with its next Manhattan location, either: It moved to the World Financial Center, which was damaged during the Sept. 11 atrocity at the World Trade Center. “We were on the side that faces the river, rather than the Trade Center, so we were somewhat protected,” said Schulman. “All of our people got out safely.”

Currently, the World Financial Center is closed. “Very substantial repair and cleanup needs to be done,” said Schulman, adding that he plans to reopen the store.

“Management’s best estimate is that it will probably be about a year before the retail developments open again.”

The company’s other stores are concentrated in New Jersey; Pennsylvania; and Washington, D.C. The newest store is at the Tices Corner Shopping Center, a lifestyle center in Woodcliff Lake, N.J.

There may be more stores in the works, Schulman said, but he is in no particular rush to expand the concept, saying he prefers a more cautious pace.

“We’re a relatively conservative company,” he said. “We prefer to err on the side of caution — we’ve seen too many retailers expand too fast and get into trouble.”

Schulman said he does believe that the Platypus concept would work well in other parts of the country, and though he has no immediate plans to move in that direction over the next year or so, he does not rule it out.

“We still feel there’s a lot of expansion potential within this market, and we want to solidify our brand within this market,” he said. “When we do move to a second or third or fourth market, we want to open a cluster of stores.”

He noted that when the firm does expand, it will likely be northward to Connecticut and Boston, south to Virginia and the Carolinas, and west to Arizona.

Platypus has had success with lifestyle centers, and it plans to stick with them.

“We’re open to a variety of different locations, but lifestyle centers are what we’re currently targeting,” Schulman said. “When you bring a whole group of specialty stores together like that, it’s just a winning combination.”

In general, he said, when selecting a suitable setting, the company looks for strong co-tenants, such as Pottery Barn and Smith & Hawken. “We’ve found that if we’re located in a cluster, we all do well.”

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