The Story of Appliance Factory & Mattress Kingdom - Interview with Chuck Ewing

CEO and owner of Appliance Factory & Mattress Kingdom is Chuck Ewing. He talks about his journey of starting his business and the companies success today. Watch the video to learn how he got started and how you can truly save money buying appliances from Appliance Factory & Mattress Kingdom.



Chuck Ewing at age 25 first started selling music equipment. He one day tried to sell a washer and dryer by putting an ad in the newspaper. The washer and dryer sold much more quickly than music equipment. He first started selling used appliances and focused on the service side of the business.He opened up his first storefront on the early 90s called East Colfax Appliances and started selling crated GE merchandise and then added new boxed appliances.

He changed the name to Appliance Factory Outlet and added offered a couple more brands including Frigidaire, Jenn Air, and more. In 98', Sears opened up the Great Indoors which was a department store catered to home decor and stated that the appliance business is growing. Chuck at this point moved to focusing on the sales side of the business spending 80% of his time on sales and only 20% of the time on service.

He opened up a second store in Colorado Springs and soon had 10 more stores to follow. Once they opened up the store in Grand Junction, he and the business started to learn tons about business operations.

In 2010, the company started to sell mattresses. Chuck noticed that they had extra room in the stores and they wanted to fill it with more inventory and decided that mattresses would be the best option.

The company has grown this year by adding 3 stores in the Midwest making a total of 19 stores in 2019. HH Gregg has closed down some of their stores in the Midwest and had started to go out of business. On the other hand, Appliance Factory is very strong and decided to adventure into the Midwest markets.

Chuck is proud of all the great buys that he can provide to customers. He is running a great quality organization. The company recently did a survey on appliance reviews with the big box stores including Sears, Home Depot, and Best Buy and found that their reviews are very low (1.7 star ratings) compared to Appliance Factory's reviews which are 4.5 star average ratings. This is true evidence that customers are happy with the service from the company.

The company has different divisions including Wholesale Distribution which focuses on the property management industry and Fine Lines which is the builder division specializing in more luxury appliances. With all of the different divisions Appliance Factory has over 500 employees.

Chuck talks about how the appliance business is a stable industry and recession proof. This makes the appliance industry a long term career path. The hardest thing about the appliance industry is getting people in the door. This is why he works with North Media and does different things to advertise. Appliance Factory is the primary sponsor of This Dream House radio show and Colorado's Best Kitchens magazine. They also have a company chef, Celebrity Chef Mark Kalix.

Chuck ends the interview by thanking all of the people in Colorado that have supported and trusted the business over the years. He also thanks all of his employees for all the great work that they do for the company.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Black Friday

Next week, as soon as our pumpkin pie dishes have been cleared away from our Thanksgiving dinner table, our thoughts will inevitably turn to the holiday season ahead. Specifically, it will be time to start thinking about how to get the best holiday gifts for our loved ones without spending a fortune. Enter Black Friday- a truly American holiday with roots going back as far as the 1950s, the day after Thanksgiving is famous for being the biggest shopping day of the year! Stores slash prices with reckless abandon, each trying to outdo one another for the best deals in town. Eager consumers line up as soon as their Thanksgiving dinner is finished and wait in line overnight for the chance to score a big-ticket electronic item or hot toy of the year at a deep discount. In recent years, Black Friday has actually started on Thursday, as more and more retailers open their stores to the public on Thanksgiving night to begin the annual buying frenzy. But where did Black Friday come from? Here’s a little history behind modern capitalism’s favorite holiday, so you can impress your friends while you’re waiting in line at 4 AM for a 4K TV at 50 percent off!

Why is it called Black Friday?

You’d think a holiday where shoppers can save untold amounts of money on holiday gifts for their friends and families would have a slightly less morbid-sounding name. After all, “Black Friday” sounds so ominous, like something one would equate with a stock market crash or a dark day in history. Actually, the origin of the name “Black Friday” includes both of those things! The term “Black Friday” was originally used way back  in the 1800s, and did not have anything to do with holiday shopping at all- in fact, the original Black Friday, September 24, 1869, was the day the U.S. gold market crashed, sending the country into financial crisis.

In the 1950s, the term was used to describe the day after Thanksgiving by police officers in Philadelphia, when the annual Army-Navy football game held the Saturday after Thanksgiving would result in a flood of tourists and shoppers to the city. The police would have to work all day, taking no time off, in order to deal with the bedlam and chaos that ensued. By 1961, the Black Friday name had caught on in Philadelphia, with retailers cashing in on the phenomenon by marking down their merchandise considerably for one-day doorbuster sales. Though marketers tried unsuccessfully to change the name to “Big Friday,” so as to make it sound more consumer-friendly and upbeat, the name Black Friday had stuck, and everyone in Philadelphia more or less treated it as a city holiday to kick off the Christmas season.

Black Friday as a concept didn’t spread to the rest of the country until about 1985, which is when retailers came up with the “official” origin of the term- since the day after Thanksgiving is one of the biggest shopping days of the year, it is a chance for stores to get “out of the red and into the black,” meaning that they can turn a profit even if sales have been slow for the year. Since the re-branding of Black Friday took place in the 80s, a decade known for its rampant consumerism, shoppers took to the new spin on the old holiday and used it as an excuse to boost the economy while enjoying tremendous savings. (In reality, the Saturday before Christmas is officially the biggest day of the year for retail sales, but it doesn’t have quite the notoriety that Black Friday does, thanks to the magic of marketing.)

Black Friday has gone on to spawn several other “shopping holidays” based on its popularity, including “Cyber Monday” (the Monday following Thanksgiving where online marketplaces slash their prices for unbelievable deals) as well as “Small Business Saturday/Sunday” (the weekend after Thanksgiving dedicated to supporting local businesses). Like it or not, Black Friday is truly an American tradition, and will be part of our holiday rituals for years to come.

In the market for incredible Black Friday deals on all your favorite brands of appliances? Want to give yourself the gift of a good night’s sleep every night with a great new mattress? Check out the Black Friday savings at Appliance Factory & Mattress Kingdom!

Special thanks to history.com for research on this article.