Warehouse of Fixtures is the only provider of new, used, and refurbished furniture in St. Louis. Our expertise makes the selection, purchasing, and installation of office furniture simple and stress-free. The ability to blend new, used, and refurbished furniture, allows us to customize solutions for our clients based on their budget, time frame, and design while keeping furniture out of the landfill.
The original Warehouse of Fixtures closed in 2001, several years after founder Arnold Singer passed away. In 2004, David Singer, Arnold’s grandson, who had just graduated from college was back in St. Louis for the summer. He was preparing to return to Boston for a job in the prosecutor’s office. David decided to help the family by working two days a week to sell off 30 years of unsold inventory that was still in the warehouse. He knew nothing about business or furniture. When a customer asked how much an item cost, David responded by asking “How much do you want to pay for it?”
David enjoyed the negotiation—he’d gotten quite good at it after time spent in Israel—but equally enjoyable was getting to know his customers, many of whom were local business owners.
“It was so cool to have them come in and to hear their stories, including how they got started in business,” David says. “I learned so much. And at the end of the summer, many of my customers asked me, ‘Where do we go when you close?’”
After researching the other businesses selling new, used and refurbished furniture to find a place to refer his customers, David came to believe there wasn’t anyone in the market segment doing a great job. So David reopened Warehouse of Fixtures believing he could do better by offering better customer service and a better customer experience.
“Most office furniture dealers with our level of service are aligned with a single major brand of furniture and only sell new,” David explains. “Whatever the client’s needs are, their solution is the brand of new furniture they represent. Because we don’t sell just one manufacturer or type of furniture, we can do whatever we want—which is to say whatever the client wants.”
That level of service is part of Warehouse of Fixtures’ commitment to St. Louis and its community.
“What I love about the city of St. Louis is that it’s got some grit. What you see is what you get in St. Louis—it’s not perfect, but it is real. And there are groups of us working to make sure the city is a better place.”
Warehouse of Fixtures saw such an opportunity in 2010 when a building that had been a print shop for AG Edward (which was later acquired by Wachovia then Wells Fargo) went up for sale in downtown St. Louis. Its vacancy was bittersweet in that it seemed part of a large-corporation exodus/sellout— Anheuser-Busch, AT&T had also gone—but it was also an opportunity for Warehouse of Fixtures to expand. Other local organizations like Cortex had a similar idea to back-fill—spatially and financially the gaps that big businesses had left behind.
The building cost over a third of what Warehouse of Fixtures’ total revenue was at the time, and David was anxious that he might lose everything by overextending. But just as David believed in the City of St. Louis, the City believed in him
“A lot of the city’s alderpeople and those in City Hall were clients of ours. They’d taken the time to get to know us, and believed in our business, they really came through for us,” David says.
The St. Louis Development Corporation helped Warehouse of Fixtures purchase the building without putting down any equity, which allowed the business to conserve cash. Soon after, Mayor Slay visited to recognize Warehouse of Fixtures as one of the top businesses in St. Louis.
He invited Warehouse of Fixtures to bid on a job to furnish the new office for the St. Louis Development Corporation, and Warehouse of Fixtures earned the contract—the largest in the company’s history at that time–and saved the city $50,000. It was a perfect indication of the growth Warehouse of Fixtures would see in the coming years.
Last year alone, the company grew by 75%, but what David is most proud of is his team.
“When you look at a business and its success, it’s easy to see only the leader,” he says. “But I can relate our growth to adding good people in the right places. We have built just a fantastic team. They believe in creating a better environment and making a better St. Louis.”
