About Us > News & Press > August 15, 2003

Store's wares range from $150,000 Oriental carpets to $25 machine-made rugs

August 15, 2003
By Mark Pickering
INDIA New England

NATICK, Mass. — You might not expect to find a store stocked with high-end Oriental carpets perched in the endless strip malls along busy Route 9 in Boston suburbs. But it's a convenient spot — and it's home to Mahmud Jafri's flag-ship Dover Rug store. In fact, a couple of other Oriental carpet places are nearby. The Natick store — with 30,000 square feet of space — is 10 times the size of the one it replaced last year, in nearby Wellesley. There is a second Dover Rug in Hanover, serving the Massachusetts South Shore. When looking to expand, it made more sense to have a larger store rather than more of them, Jafri says. "We draw customers from 50 miles around," he says. "It's not unusual for us to draw people from New Hampshire." These are destination stores, with customers buying specialty items. His most expensive one, a huge antique Oriental, costs about $150,000, Jafri says. "That would be something you'd see in a museum," he says, adding these large rugs were typically made for palaces and mosques. Cheaper machine-made rugs go for far less — with a scatter rug at perhaps $25. Jafri clearly has fans. "He's got the best selection in town," says Gail Van Kleek, owner of Dover Interiors in Westwood, which has no relation to Dover Rug. "I bring people to Mahmud because he has a wonderful selection and because he has great integrity." Beyond that, the large Natick showrooms are very convenient, she said. Most of the rugs are on display hangers that can be easily flipped through — like at a poster shop — rather than being piled on top of each other. Well-heeled customers at Dover Rugs can buy handmade rugs in the $10,000 range. However, downstairs from the Natick location is a basement store, with less expensive rugs. It includes a "Budget Turf by Elements" display: The fake grass even comes in bright blue. "It's a one-stop shop," Van Kleek says of the Natick store. Rugs can be restored and repaired.

The two stores — with about 20 employees — are really only the showcase surface of Dover Rug Co., a trading and manufacturing business with factories and artisans in India, Pakistan and Nepal. As a result, Jafri estimates the company employs about 4,500 people, either directly or indirectly through subcontractors. "It's an extremely labor-intensive business," he says. Referring to handmade rugs, he says, "with something that has been in progress for two years, people may look at it for three minutes — and decide they love it or hate it." The company is on track to have annual revenues of $10 million — and business is up about one-sixth since the new store opened in April 2002, Jafri says. Jafri was born in October 1954 in Karachi, Pakistan. Because his father was a government official and diplomat, the family lived in various parts of Pakistan and in Iran, where Jafri learned Persian. His father was also a poet and social reformer who criticized, in a humorous fashion, feudalism in Pakistan. The family business, on the other hand, was carpets. His paternal grandfather, Jafri says, was a landowner and politician who saw rug-making as a way rural people, and homebound women, could make money in the off season. Jafri is a man who likes to talk rugs. Persian designs, like Islam, were introduced to the subcontinent in the 16th century by the Mogul emperors. "Not much has changed since then in the way rugs are made today," he adds. "You have weavers who sit weaving these rugs one knot at a time. Some of those designs were attempted in a power-loom environment — and they tried to copy the hand-knotted look. But at the end of the day, a hand-knotted rug is a hand-knotted rug." In 1974, however, Jafri was not pursuing the family business. Instead, he moved to the United States, where he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from UCLA. He then earned an MBA from Northrop University in Inglewood, Calif.

After graduation, he worked for eight years at investment companies, hiring and training sales people. In the '80s, he and some cousins started a rug company — manufacturing and importing. "This was a sleepy little company with a small office in Wellesley and the main office in Lahore (Pakistan)," he says. It was just something he did on the side. Eventually, he took the company's helm. "I was getting to the stage in my life where my heritage and culture and tradition was increasingly important." He adds: "This was the only business I could think of that had a family tradition." In 1989, he opened a store in Dover, where he still lives. "It was 300 square feet, one little room," he says. "It was more or less a pilot project. At that point in time, we were looking for feedback from the customer." The '80s were a time of change in the Oriental rug business, he says. Consumers went from simply buying what was available to looking for rugs that would blend into existing decorations. "We had to change our colors and styles," he says. "The only way to do that was to be in direct touch with consumers." In 1994, the company closed its Dover store and opened the Wellesley one, which was 10 times larger. Now, with a store in Hanover as well, Jafri seems satisfied with his decision to take up the family trade. The rug business "has allowed me to travel to those parts of the world where I come from," he says. He was well positioned for success. "Safety was not an issue for me," he says. "And having family members and roots goes a long way in this business." For others to get into the business would have been harder, he says.

"We sort of had an advantage based on who we are and with our standing in the community. Integrity is big, when business is done on a handshake basis." At a given time, he says, four-fifths of the rugs being made are in private homes that contractors supervise. Dover Rug has about 100 managers in charge of 40 to 50 looms making sure work moves in a timely manner, he says. Nonetheless, he says, "I try to visit two or three customers a day, on average — otherwise I get restless, I get bored. And it keeps you on your toes and humble." Sometimes it means visiting with friends. Aliya Ahmed and her husband, Sonus Networks chief Hassan Ahmed, have known Jafri for about 20 years. When they and their children moved to Andover in 1998, they had Jafri size up their decorations. She visited a showroom. "He gave me a quick lesson in carpets," she says. Then, Jafri "came over with a van full of carpets," Ahmed says. Jafri brought the ones she had picked out — plus others. She didn't go for his choices — she wanted a contemporary look. Jafri argued for a little tradition. Ahmed remembers: "He'd say, ‘Believe me Aliya, I know. Just live with them for a little while and you'll see.' " The Ahmeds hosted a company party — and got lots of praises. "I never did return the carpets," she says. They now have eight or nine carpets from Dover Rug, most selected by Jafri. Jafri and his wife, Zeba, have three teenagers, Fatima, Ali and Hassan.