The FINANCIAL — Verona, the leading furniture store in Georgia, is now offering the latest collections of exclusive Italian brands in its newly-opened showroom on Agmashenebeli Alley in the capital city of Tbilisi, where customers can find everything they need to furnish the spaces in their homes, from the living area to the bedroom.
Dallagnese; Tonincasa; Valentini; Pinton; Maxdivani; Madrassi; Calligaris; Camelgroup; and Domitalia – these are the new Italian brands that have recently been added to the existing collections at Verona furniture store, raising the shop to a newer and even higher level of quality than before.
Nukri Lipartashvili, President and founder of Verona LLC, told Glossy Magazine that the coronavirus pandemic “has shown us once again how important the environment and the space where we live are”.
“Each component of one’s furniture has now become more important as we are now in more frequent contact with them. Home improvements and the thirst for novelty have increased the demand for a variety of furniture. This has encouraged us to implement an ambitious project and open a showroom on Agmashnebeli Alley which enables us to meet the demand of Georgian customers,” Lipartashvili said.
Verona furniture store has been offering top quality Italian brands to Georgian customers since 2013. Lipartashvili says that back then Italian furniture in Georgia was associated with unaffordable prices, however, “our team has managed to make the Italian quality and design affordable for Georgian customers”.
“The market policy of Verona Group aims to include in the portfolio as much as possible the Italian factories selected for their combination of affordable price, design and quality. Some of our suppliers are medium to small Italian manufacturers, whose furniture production is often passed down via family tradition over generations,” said Lipartashvili.
Q. You have opened a new showroom and brought new Italian brands to it. How has this affected the sales statistics of Verona?
A. Last year, even with the period of work limited to almost a third of the year due to coronavirus restrictions, sales of the furniture house Verona exceeded the results of 2019 by 20%.
All the products presented in the store starting from seating, bedroom and dining room sets, to kitchen furniture, kitchen appliances, outdoor furniture, carpets, lighting, accessories and decorations are in equal demand and almost equal in sales.
Verona furniture house and renovation materials showroom Veneto Designs fully covers the list of items needed for home renovation, replenishment, refurnishing decoration and meets the wishes of customers of all tastes.
Q. What is Verona’s current market share?
A. I would divide the market into three parts: the low segment – which is mainly supplied by local production; the budget segment – which is mainly filled by products imported from Asian countries; and the medium to high segment – which is supplied by European furniture.
In the middle to high segment, Verona is the undisputed market leader and the most important player, whose trends and innovations are being copied and replicated by other new and existing companies.
Q. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, what are the challenges your business is currently facing?
A. At first, on the day that the business was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, on 18 March, 2020, what we did was that we all got together and told each employee that we would not fire anyone, that everyone would be receiving their salary when due as normal, and that we would reserve resources for that.
This sense of unity and teamwork allowed us to maintain communication with customers, suppliers and partners during the most stressful of periods so that the business was ready to reopen at any moment. We went through the subsequent lockdowns much more easily, as we were in constant communication with potential buyers.
The Lombardy and Treviso regions of Italy were the ones most affected by the pandemic, but despite this fact the production process there was stopped for only a few weeks and even then the delivery of furniture did not stop. International shipments did not stop for a single day and we managed to deliver all orders on time, which further increased the credibility and reputation of our business group.
Despite the pandemic we also managed to open a new showroom in Tbilisi which we invested EUR 3.5 million in. Additionally, we invested EUR 1 million in our Veneto Design repair materials showroom.
So despite the pandemic we actually managed to overcome all challenges and develop further.
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