Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
With her genuinely good heart and a wealth of experience behind her, Susannah works to connect local business and non-profit leaders to their neighbors. In a community like ours in which so many have invested their lives, there are fantastic stories all around us that motivate and inspire, often right next door. She hopes to share some of those here, on the Good Neighbor Podcast. Book an interview today at GNPAuburn.com
Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
Ep.#89: Goree's Furniture Express: How A Family Upholstery Shop Became A Furniture Destination
We share how a backyard consignment idea became a 106,000 square foot furniture destination built on service, selection, and speed. Jimmy walks through upholstery roots, supplier roadblocks, and the “get it to go” promise that keeps customers coming back.
• starting as consignment then moving to new retail
• family upholstery background shaping quality standards
• supplier rejection at Tupelo and pushing through
• mentors who encouraged the leap and resilience
• growth from 800 to 106,000 square feet
• brands with customization and six-week builds
• ten-year cushion warranties driving confidence
• same-day pickup and deep in-stock selection
• community work and first-year St. Jude push
• local ownership, 24-hour problem response goal
• store location on Highway 169 in Opelika
• contact details and active Facebook promotions
www.goreesfurniture.com
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SPEAKER_02:Welcome, and with me is Jimmy Gore with Gory's Furniture in Opalica. Welcome, Jimmy.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Well, I'm glad to be here today.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I am familiar with your business, living in the area. Tell us a little bit about Gory's Furniture. What is some of the history there? I know it's a family business. You've been around a long time. Tell us a little bit about it.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, we've been here for 37 years. Wow. We uh started, people don't know, but we start actually started as consignment house of fine furniture. We sold furniture on consignment. You take something, we split the money, we sell it, and we did that for two years. Then we decided to go into uh the retail part of new furniture. Okay. It's a lot easier to get it, unbox it, than it is to repair it. And then sell it. So that was but we were very fortunate for that to help us get started. Uh, because we didn't know what we were doing. We went in furniture business, really did not know what we were doing. So we started from there.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you got to start from somewhere, absolutely. And uh getting started in business can sometimes be that way. You kind of have to learn as you go.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, you do. You got to pave your own way, you gotta cut through them trees and ditches and keep going. That's right.
SPEAKER_02:Well, uh, tell me how you got into the business. You said you started doing consignment, but what led to, hey, let's uh let's get into the furniture business.
SPEAKER_00:You know, a lot of people don't even know this. Uh I've been in the furniture business all my life ever since I was probably let me finish, six years, seven years old, because my mom and dad had an upholstery shop, Glory's Upholstery. Oh. So Daddy would pay us a nickel, dime, quarter, whatever, to pull the fabric off of a piece of furniture, and then he would recover it. And then I went to Open Like State Tech and took upholstery, uh, not knowing what I wanted to do. So we actually started upholstery.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:I found an antique piece somewhere and redo it, and uh the decorators come out and see what I had, and so every time we get something, we'd sell it. It's a lot easier to sell furniture than it is to re-upholster.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So it's a lot of labor in re-upholstery, yes.
SPEAKER_00:It is a lot of labor. And uh firstly, we started there, and um wife started talking about maybe we could just sell some furniture. And the big challenges in the furniture industry for us, when you go into uh trying to find people that have a sell to you, distributors, nobody wanted to sell to us because we were new. Oh yeah. Nobody knew gore eas. So we actually went to a Tupelo Furniture Market and started walking in the door, this gigantic building, not knowing what we was doing. So we'd walk down the aisle and we'd say, Oh, I like that. We go in, tell them who we were, uh, and they'd come back and say, I'm sorry, you don't fit into our program, or we already got the distribution in your area. So, in other words, go away. Yeah, we're not dealing with you. About a half a day of that, we uh was very discouraged.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I can remember Pam sitting at a table. We stopped and got something to drink, sitting at the table. She just started crying. Oh no. I said, Pam, what's going on? She said, We're not gonna make it. Well, tell me why. She said, Nobody wants to fool with us. You know, we hadn't done anything all day long. And I'll never forget this. I told her, I said, Pam, we're a little minnow in a big pond. And nobody, you know, all they could do is eating up that minna. They're just guffing us up. We got to go on. We must push on. And so we did. Good in that market and found some people that would sell to us. I'll never forget the first order we gave was hardened manufacturing, not nothing against they're out of business now, so I can say it. When it got here, we didn't know whether to put the box out or the furniture. Neither one was worth a darn. But that's all we had.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We started out there, and we just grew since then.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's a great story. And Pam, I'm assuming, is your wife?
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So you and you and your wife got started in the business. And part of the reason I do this podcast is because um I like to encourage people that are thinking about entrepreneurship, going into business for themselves. And there's always hardships, isn't there? There's always bumps in the road. And you just described one and and why why you should keep going.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you can't get discouraged. When we started uh talking about going into the furniture business, everyone we talked to said it'll never work. You'll never work. You're outside of town, your stores in your backyard, there's nobody gonna ride that far out to buy furniture. But they do. And I tell you, there's two people I got to give it to. A guy named Wayne Poe, which we lost about a month ago, and a guy named Bobby Parker. That was our mentors kind of. Wayne was a big guy at the hospital, and Mr. Parker had Parker grad. And when I sat down and talked with them, they encouraged you to keep going. They told Jimmy, don't stop. You you you're gonna be fine. And I always remember there's a place in Tuskegee, a lot of listeners wouldn't know this, called Jackson's Furniture. Everybody called it the chicken coop. But Jackson had an old chicken barn that he sold furniture out of. And he was the he was the furniture man.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So I said, hey, if they go to Tuskegee to the chicken barn, why would they come to us?
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:That's how we started. We started with 800 square feet. 800. Now pretty small for a furniture. Maybe not for a jewelry store, but furniture's pretty small. Now we're 106,000 square feet.
SPEAKER_02:That's some growth there.
SPEAKER_00:My dad always told me, be like a mule. He put them blinders on when you plow in a field, and you that mule ply straight ahead. Okay. He'd be looking all around. That road would be crooked. So my daddy said, put your blinders on and don't look behind you what other people are doing, or what other people are seeing. Yeah. That mule keep that straight. So I've always kept that in in mind.
SPEAKER_02:Well, 37 years later, you guys are going strong. And how many square feet did you say?
SPEAKER_00:106,000.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So what are some of the brands you carry?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Hooker, Kincaid, Craftmaster, Jackson, uh, England. Two of those are special order lines. We've got over 5,000 fabrics you can choose from. So if you're looking for a sofa, love seat chair, all I can tell you we can do it. I mean, we can build it any way you want to build, have it returned to you in six weeks.
SPEAKER_02:So it's really customization then. You customize the furniture.
SPEAKER_00:Two lines we got England and Kraftmaster, exactly. They customize it. Uh one thing I love now, they've really stepped up because uh like the cushions on a seat, 10-year warranty. Wow. Never heard of it. No, that's amazing. 10 years, and they will do it. I promise you, they will do it. So it's amazing. And we've got over 1,500 rugs in stock, floor rug that we got every kind of rug you can think about. We run about 1,200, 1,500 in stock. And one of my great sayings in the furniture business is get it to go. Okay. What I mean by that, and me talking, I'm not throwing off on any other store, but you go into a lot of stores and say, I love this sofa, this chair. Oh, I want to get that. They'll say we'll have it to you in three to four weeks. People want it now. Instant gratification they want it right now. Instant gratification. You got to wait three to four weeks. There come the gories. You back your truck up, bring your horse, your wagon, whatever. We'll load it up for you, and you can get it together.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's awesome. I love that. Well, let's uh let's talk about you for a minute, Jimmy. What do you and Pam, your wife, what do y'all like to do when you're not working in the furniture business? What do y'all do for fun?
SPEAKER_00:Work. Work? Okay. No, no. Yeah, we we still we we work a lot. We are very much involved, even if we're off here, we try to be uh visible in the community. We like to do community work, we like to uh help different organizations out. Um you know, it's just it's very pleasing to be able to situation that you can help people and that you're willing to help people. Um we just did a big, big push on the uh uh St. Jude. Uh right. If anybody looks at anything, that's very touching to see how thankful and we should be. So we just completed the first year of that. Uh it went real well. Uh I learned a lot about kids. Take a family go in, zero bill when they walk out.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, that's such a blessing, isn't it? It is a great organization.
SPEAKER_00:That is uh absolutely gonna have me crying here.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it it is very, very touching what they do there and how they take care of their um the sick the uh sick children and their families. It certainly is a a charity that's worth um giving to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I've never needed it, but I do know people that a few people think that have used it and they I mean the kids are fine, grown, got their kids. Wonderful. Yeah. I love to fish. I I I do go fishing from time to time. Um pretty much whenever I want to. They they try to get me out of the store. They said I'm never satisfied, and I'm not, you know, in business. You always want to do better.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, you always gotta be growing, because if you're not growing, you're you're going backwards. That's right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's right. I said if you're not growing, you might well go get a sales sign and stick it in front of your store. So that's right. Yeah, so we we play, have fun with our grandkids. Uh, like I said, I've pigeon pal. I couldn't tell you what she won't like to do. She just likes to be at home with the grandkids.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, nothing like family.
SPEAKER_00:That's okay too.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, absolutely. Well, what is one thing that you wish people knew about Gory's furniture that they may not realize?
SPEAKER_00:I want people to know that we are 100% local. We're not a corporate store. We make our own decisions here. We are very, very into it with our customer. If you got a problem, I tell people it's never a problem that we can't solve.
SPEAKER_02:That's wonderful.
SPEAKER_00:My goal is if you have a problem, notify us 24 hours. We should have a identify the problem and let you know what we're gonna do to correct the problem. Okay, so that's one thing. And there's also a member in our family in our business that a lot of people don't talk about. And that's Jesus above. God is in this business, absolutely, and I've always been told the hands of Jesus will look over you, and it's always been good for us. So to stay strong, take care of your customers, take care of your business, take care of your community, things gonna work out.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's great advice. Now tell us a little bit about how to find you. I know that you're you're you're not in town, you're a little off the beaten path. Where are you located?
SPEAKER_00:We're in a highway 169 here in Opalika. Um, with two miles, used to be Unoroil Goodrich, big warehouse now, but I always tell people two miles south of Uneroy on Highway 169.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. And uh how can people get in touch with you? Phone number, website, everything.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, good. 334-742-0607. Websites Glory's furniture.com on Facebook. Facebook, okay. We we love our Facebook. There it you know, all these people sitting around, they got their phones and they that's right.
SPEAKER_02:We're addicted to them, aren't we aren't we?
SPEAKER_00:Addicted on Facebook, and there you can see a lot of things that we do uh on Facebook. We have another we'll throw a little promotion out on certain items, and uh we put it on Facebook and it doesn't take long, it's gone. So it it we're very active in the Facebook, and you know it it does us good. People going on there and give us comments of what they would like to see. But us being a hometown, homegrown, Pam was raised up in Opalika. I was raised up in Opalika, been here all the time. Like I said, we're not a corporate store, we're a Goree's furniture store, Jimmy and Pam Goree. We started it and I hope well, I won't end it, but I'm gonna take it as long as I can.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it's a wonderful story and a wonderful business you've got there, a great testament to um Oklaika. Um, thank you so much for joining me today, Jimmy. I've enjoyed hearing your story.
SPEAKER_00:It's been a pleasure. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Audit. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gmtauper.com. That's gmtaubers.com. Or call 324. Oh, 2024.