CRATE AND BARREL : Your Haven when it comes to Household Needs

The long wait is over and it just like Christmas, as leading Home Furnishings Brand Opens Store in Manila last November 20, 2014. Everyone was excited as to what Crate and Barrel is store for every home. It’s one stop center for all your house hold needs, from the simplest item to the grand bed and linens.

SM Retail is pleased to announce that it has agreed to a basic framework for establishing a franchise with home furnishings retailer Crate and Barrel through SM Retailer subsidiary HMS Development Corporation.

Based on this agreement, the new franchise company will be established in the Philippines in 2014, with the first Crate and Barrel store in Manila to open at the Mega Fashion Hall on November 20. More stores will follow shortly in the first quarter of 2015.

“We are happy to announce that the first Crate and Barrel store in Manila is opening on Nov. 20 at the SM Mega Fashion Hall,” says Crate and Barrel Interim CEO Adrian Mitchell. “In collaboration with our esteemed franchise partner, SM Retail Group, we are bringing in the best of Crate and Barrel and creating an exciting new retail synergy in Manila.”

Crate and Barrel opened its doors in 1962 as a family business started by Gordon and Carole Segal in Chicago, Illinois.  The couple was inspired by the simple, well-designed, affordable products they had purchased on their honeymoon in Europe.  The Segals decided to open a home furnishings store, calling it ‘Crate and Barrel’ after the shipping crates and barrels, which brought their inventory and became their first store fixtures. Working directly with European ateliers and factories to import their products, Crate and Barrel was among the first retailers to make modern tabletop and kitchenware’s affordable to American consumers.

Today, Crate and Barrel is an international, multi-channel family of brands, known for exclusive housewares and furniture designs, excellent value and superb customer service.  Owned by the Otto Group of Hamburg, Germany, since 1998, the company operates stores in most major North American markets as well as international franchise locations in Dubai, Singapore and Mexico.

SM Retail, the leading retail group in the Philippines, has over fifty years of experience in the industry.  Its retail operations include a chain of department stores, supermarkets, and hypermarkets strategically located in key cities in the Philippines.

It also has a chain of specialty store formats that serve niche markets focusing on a wide selection of merchandise for each category like appliance stores, home stores, and toy superstores.

Beginning with a franchise with ACE Hardware and a joint venture with Watsons, SM’s retail group has also entered into partnerships with global retailers.  These include Forever 21, Uniqlo, Suiteblanco, and Uno de 50.

SM Retail is part of SM Investments Corporation, one of the country’s largest conglomerates, which also has core businesses in mall operations, banking, property, and hotels, and conventions.