Chicago In-Home Retailer Luna Expands

Bellwood, IL, August 20, 2007--Luna, the in-home carpet seller, will branch out into brick and mortar retail stores this fall, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

The newspaper said Luna, with 150 employees at its Bellwood headquarters and $35 million in revenues this year, will open stores in Addison, Lake Zurich, Naperville and Wheeling on Oct. 1, and will continue to serve customers in their homes.

The stores will be similar to Luna's 10,000-square-foot showcase gallery in Schaumburg, which Luna President Morrie DeZara, 45, described as the "Nordstrom of carpet stores" with greeters, buttoned-down salespeople, and a clean, polished environment.

The new stores vary in size from 4,000 to 5,500 square feet, dwarfing many of their mom-and-pop rivals, which typically measure 1,500 to 2,000 square feet. They will feature more than 10,000 carpet selections and up to 3,000 hardwood and laminate flooring selections. 

About 20% of the company's revenues come from hardwood and laminate flooring. Luna expects to start selling tile soon, too. Steve DeZara, Morrie's DeZara's 42-year-old brother and the company's CEO, expects hardwood and laminate flooring to grow to 50 percent of the company's revenues in the next five years given its popularity in home design.

Luna executives are aiming to operate 10 stores in the Chicago area in the next three to five years.