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The onion is coming to Rantoul.

This Is It Furniture, made famous by owner Mike Namoff’s commercials that promise a free onion to anyone who enters, will open in early November in Rantoul Plaza.

Namoff said he is shooting for a Nov. 1 opening. He said the move-in will start in mid-October.

“They’ve already started working on the building,” Namoff said. “We’ve got the wall painted. The sign is coming. It’s rolling full speed.”

The building, located in the shopping center on the community’s east side, will have been vacant only about two months since Irish’s Gymnastics moved its operations to Gilman in early September. The gym had been located in the plaza since 1997.

The enthusiastic Namoff said the Rantoul store will mark the opening of the seventh This Is It store since opening his first one 23 years ago in Champaign.

According to Namoff, plaza owner David Meyer is a big reason he decided to open in Rantoul.

He said, “I’ve got a deal you can’t refuse — 10,000 square feet,” plaza manager Ron Minch said. “We’re definitely looking forward to having them.”

Added Namoff, “He was really aggressive at getting me in there and was persistent and got a deal done.”

The 10,000 square feet the building offers is plenty “big enough to do what we need to do,” said Namoff.

“We’re going to carry Simmons, Serta and Ashley (furniture). Also, I’m going to carry King Coil bedding, and I’m going to do some consignment as well.”

Namoff said consignment sales have grown in popularity with his company. It allows private citizens to sell their furniture using This Is It as a third party.

Many people don’t like the idea of having strangers traipsing through their house when looking at furniture for sale, Manoff said. They would rather have it at a place like This Is it.

“It’s turning your old furniture into cash,” Namoff said. “Consignment is very popular these days.”

Sellers won’t have to bring the items to the store. This Is It will pick them up for them.

Namoff said many of the used items are in almost-new shape. He cited a 75-year-old woman who said she wanted to buy a new sofa and that she needed to get rid of the old one. Namoff asked her what was wrong with the old sofa, and she said, “I’m tired of the color.”

Namoff said the store will offer free layaway, “on-the-spot no-credit check financing with no-interest options, which is very important to people these days.” The store offers a 90-day same-as-cash program.

He said the new business will create “six to ten jobs,” with “three to five” of them full time.

“We would need a furniture technician, delivery people and sales people,” Namoff said.

Store hours will be 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. It will be closed Sunday “so I can go to church with my wife.”

Namoff said his wife convinced him to not be open on Sundays, and he said sales actually increased.

In addition to the “free onion” offering, the store is famous for its “downer, downer, downer” pitch as in prices are dropping.

“The downer started 15 years ago,” Namoff said. “(In a commercial), my dad was supposed to say ‘lower,” and he messed it up and we went with it.”

His “free onion” sales pitch keeps onion growers happy. Namoff said he has 50 pounds of onions delivered a day.

“It’s just a gimmick that really works,” he said, and it gets a lot of attention. He adopted it because “our prices don’t make you cry.”

The pitch has been featured on “David Letterman” and “Talk Soup” on the E! cable show. “I go all over the United States and people recognize me as the onion guy.”

“I’ll have all kinds of people all day long sneak in just to get the onion,” he said with a laugh. “I’m absolutely fine with it.”

dhinton@rantoulpress.com

Printed in the Vermilion Advantage October 2008

Full Story

Mike Namoff- The This is it Furniture story

Full of energy is the best way to describe Mike Namoff, the owner of This Is It Furniture located at 103 E. Main St. in the former Rhodes-Burford building (currently loacted at 245 S. Mattis Avenue). When asked to describe his business in Danville, Mike has one word, “unbelievable.”

A conversation with Mike is more than unbelievable, it is inspirational. The positive energy he gives off makes you feel you have been in the presence of a motivational speaker in the category of Zig Ziglar.

Mike started his first furniture store at the age of 17. The keys for his success are many, but a lot of credit goes to his parents who were always motivating and supporting him. When Mike or one of his five brothers had a business idea, his parents always said, “Yes, you can.” Having that support at home at a young age is a great beginning step for a budding entrepreneur. Mike believes too many dreams and ideas of children are not supported by parents or adults. In his work with youth, he preaches, “Someone’s negative opinion doesn’t have to become your reality.”

Having a good attitude was another quality his parents instilled in Mike when he was a child. “As a kid when you woke up at my house, there was never a bad day.” He still believes that a person’s attitude dictates the view of success and failure. If you don’t try a new idea, then you will never know if it will work.

Mike was born into an entrepreneurial family. His father owned a wholesale produce business and a furniture store in Chicago. His brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins all own furniture stores. At the age of seventeen he told his parents he was ready to own his own store. They said okay, and he and his father headed to South Bend, IN looking for a building. In South Bend, they couldn’t find anything suitable, so his dad said, “Let’s drive this way,” and they headed southwest. They arrived in Champaign and found a building on Springfield Ave. Mike told his dad, “This is it.” That store is still the base of operation for This Is It Furniture. The $15,000 he had saved up since childhood was used as collateral for the first building and his starting inventory. Read More.