New York, NY, Mar. 12--Martha isn't going anywhere yet--in terms of merchandise, there's going to be more of her than ever.
From the mass market "Martha Stewart Everyday" line to the upscale "Martha Stewart: The Catalog for Living," a barrage of new home items bearing Stewart's name will roll out this year. Even as a jury in New York convicted her on federal criminal charges of lying about a stock sale last week, retailers working with Stewart's flagship company planned to launch new eponymous furniture and paints. The company is even testing a new household tips magazine.
At Kmart, where Martha merchandise accounts for 5% of the chain's $16.9 billion annual sales, a five-year-old gardening line is getting a face lift with four new patio sets. Retailer Huffman Koos is expecting its first shipment of the new Martha Stewart Signature "Turkey Hill" line, named for Stewart's 1805 Westport, CT clapboard farmhouse. And new for Easter in this spring's "Catalog for Living": $29 chenille cups to hold $16-a-bag gummy eggs. (They're studded with candy confetti.)
While these products reflect commitments made before the verdict, many retailers said they expect to bolster their existing lines and order new products featuring Stewart's name and image. Last year, while the rest of the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia empire sustained revenue declines of as much as 26%, its merchandise group, primarily fueled by Kmart sales, jumped 9%. Meanwhile, the wannabes who've been trying to grab the lifestyle-guru mantle over the last year have yet to create a significant following among consumers or even a fleshed-out product selection.
"Martha has a tremendous following. Her product line is strong, and people like it," says design-industry consultant Keith Granet.
Of course, outside the retail world, Stewart's business partners haven't been as optimistic. A handful of Viacom-owned stations dumped her syndicated show, "Martha Stewart Living," soon after the verdict. New York Times Co.'s syndicate announced earlier this week that it was removing her name from two weekly columns, dubbing them simply "Living" and "Weddings" instead of "AskMartha" and "AskMartha Weddings." The Food Network, which has been airing "From Martha's Kitchen" for six years, hasn't decided whether it will run all of the programming it has already filmed. Its sister network, HGTV, let contracts for "From Martha's Garden" and "From Martha's Home" expire at the end of 2003.
But in River Edge, NJ a Huffman Koos store that devotes a vast 4,500 square feet to the Martha Stewart Signature Collection is still committed to the product line. Phil Richmond, vice president for marketing for Huffman Koos's Lancaster, PA parent company, Breuners Home Furnishings, says the store has added some products and discontinued others. "You'll see new things," he says.
Foremost Furniture, a retailer in New York City, says it sold seven Turkey Hill items last weekend, and just boosted showroom space for the line to 3,500 square feet from 2,000. "We're still adding some pieces," says Richard Broderson, president of Foremost.
Fine Paints of Europe, Woodstock, VT, which already offers 110 different shades of Martha's Fine Paints ($80 for each European-sized, 2.5-liter can), says it is planning a new Bedford line, inspired by the upstate New York town. "If anything, we were gratified to see a bounce in Martha Stewart colors in recent weeks," says company owner John Lahey Sr.
Bernhardt Furniture, a maker of home and office furniture based in Lenoir, NC is adding new items to its Martha Stewart Signature Collection, a mid-priced line that premiered in 2002. The Turkey Hill line, which includes beds and tables and other pieces, is part of that collection and was added a few months after its creative source was indicted in June 2003.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia says it is "taking the pulse" of partners, readers and advertisers on whether to scale back or repackage either its flagship "Martha Stewart Living" magazine or any of the spinoff products. "We're evaluating the impact" of the trial, says company spokeswoman Elizabeth Estroff. Just last month, the company introduced a new digest-sized magazine, "Organizing Good Things", that offered advice on vexing household issues like unwieldy broom closets, hanging versus folding clothing, and where to store loose pushpins. (One suggestion: a soap dish attached to a bulletin board.)
Not all retailers are making long-term plans for their Martha merchandise. A Kmart spokesman declined to comment about future orders. In Dallas, John Stacy, president of S&H Carpet Distributing, says Martha Stewart Everyday carpets and tiles account for about 20% of his showroom space, but "it probably isn't going to have a future with us." Stacy says he expects to stage a liquidation sale of all Martha products within the next month. "You want things to be positive and upbeat," says Stacy. "We prefer someone to walk in and say how well the showroom looks, instead of snotty comments."
