The crowds remained light at this week’s furniture show.
By Alan Wolf, YSN
Retail traffic at this week’s just-concluded High Point Fall Market remained light compared to pre-pandemic furniture shows, particularly among independent dealers.
According to sources contacted by industry news site Home News Now, independents and smaller retail accounts were more concerned about delivering goods on order than seeing forthcoming product at Market.
“They still don’t have product from April or June,” one rep told the website.
For those who did attend, the main topics of conversation with exhibitors were supply chain, sourcing and availability. “Now with all the problems in Asia, it is about who can deliver,” Jim LaBarge, CEO of luxury case goods and upholstery resource Marge Carson, told Home News Now.
Added Steve York, president of case goods resource FD Home, “The number one question we get is, ‘What do you have in stock?’”
As for the retailers themselves, those on hand reported sticker shock and ongoing concern over the broken supply chain, Home News Now said. But dealers were also inspired by the new introductions, despite what could be a long wait to receive them.
For BrandSource member Oscar Miskelly of Miskelly Furniture, a highlight was Ashley’s new Restoration Hardware-inspired Millennum collection, which he called “Probably the best thing I’ve seen in 10 years up here … just a fabulous look. We’re probably going to do a 10,000-square-foot display of it.”
Miskelly’s brother Tommy was equally enamored by Millennum, and pointed to Miranda Kerr Home’s Tranquility collection as another standout. “I just thought they had some really fresh-looking new pieces that you don’t see everywhere, that’s affordable,” he told the news site.
Hat tip to Home News Now.
