NFL playoff promotion costs furniture store owner $600,000

Houston’s Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, owner of Gallery Furniture in Houston, thought he had a brilliant way to get customers through his doors.

Instead, McIngvale's promotion resulted in him giving away furniture for free. 

Gallery Furniture recently had an NFL-related promotion that did not turn out how McIngvale anticipated. According to KHOU.com, there were three aspects of the promotion:

1. Customers needed to purchase more than $5,000 worth of furniture.

2.The customer had to receive the furniture prior to the first conference championship game last Sunday.

3. Consumers needed to guess the two teams headed to the Super Bowl.

It seemed like a good idea until 100 customers met each of the store's criteria and received their furniture for free. 

That meant McIngvale said good-bye to $600,000.

“I took a deep breath and gulped in my throat,” McIngvale told KHOU.com. “Six hundred thousand dollars of free furniture. Eighty percent of the customers were smart and picked the right teams.”

Most stores purchase insurance to prevent losing money during wild promotional events, which could have limited the financial damage. McIngvale told Yahoo Sports he did not purchase insurance.

Even so, there had to be a better way than this to get people to purchase a bedroom set.

"I literally ran out the door screaming that we won because all of our neighbors knew we were doing it," said Troy Moreland told KHOU.com.

It's not the first time McIngvale has given away free furniture. In the past he's done similar promotions for college and pro football games, with the biggest payout coming in around $400,000, he told Yahoo Sports.

"It was a big loss, but at the end of the day it's all about making customers happy, and at the end of the day there were a lot of happy customers out there," McIngvale told Yahoo Sports.

And he's not done. McIngvale told Yahoo Sports if you purchase $6,000 worth of furniture "and the team from Seattle" wins the Super Bowl, your furniture is free.