Morris Jensen, owner and manager of Bacos & Berg Inc., is conducting a $1-for-1 euro sale at the furniture store on the Allied Joint Force Command Naples base. (Sandra Jontz / S&S)
NAPLES, Italy — There’s at least one place where the U.S. dollar still packs a purchasing punch against the euro.
In a cramped furniture store at the NATO base in Bagnoli, Italy, $1 buys a euro-worth of goods. For a limited time, at least.
At Bacos & Berg Inc., housed in the old theater of the Allied Joint Force Command Naples base, owner and manager Morris Jensen combined sympathy for customers with a little marketing ploy and came up with the $1-for-1 euro sale on all furniture.
“We have to keep the margins reasonable while this whole crazy euro-exchange rate is going on,” said Jensen, who has run the store for about 20 years.
Granted, he bought much of the inventory at a time when the dollar-to-euro exchange rate wasn’t so poor, he said.
“We made a lot of our purchases before the euro rate got so crazy,” he said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to do it.”
The store is a week into the special sales promotion, and Jensen thinks it will continue for about another week — depending on the customer draw, which so far has been phenomenal, he said.
Bacos & Berg has been a presence on the NATO base for 55 years, he said. It moved about seven years ago into the old theater from a location that used to be 12 times its current space.
The showrooms on two floors now are cramped with mostly Italian leather couches and chairs, but also has a few solid wood Scandinavian-made dining tables and chairs, a roll-top desk, hutches and lamps.
