Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 15, 1994 TAG: 9405130062
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
ONE analyst titled a 1994 forecast of the furniture industry: "Happy Days Are Here Again." Another said "the weather wasn't the only thing bright" at last month's International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C.
"Business is good," said Robert Cooper at his showroom during the big wholesale market and again last week when he was encountered shopping at a Roanoke Valley supermarket.
Cooper, who lives in the Roanoke Valley, is president of The Uttermost Co. Inc., which last year shipped $9 million worth of wall art and mirrors from its plant near Rocky Mount in Franklin County.
Uttermost, already the primary source for mirrors for The Bombay Co.'s chain of home decor shops, recently became the main mirror supplier for J.C. Penney Co.
The company's products show up in most major catalogs.
Cooper said he anticipates sales of $15 million this year.
To satisfy its growing market, the family-owned company is ready to break ground on a 52,000-square-foot addition that will more than double the quarters for its 65 workers. Employment also should about double over the next two years, Cooper said.
Uttermost has had continued growth except for a standstill at $5 million in sales in 1990 and 1991. But even the home furnishings companies that in 1990-1991 had their first down years in a decade are using "business" and "good" in the same sentence these days.
The turnaround that began after 1991 appears to be real.
Furniture spending in 1993 rose 9.4 percent, to $43.8 billion, from $40 billion in 1992. Adjusted for inflation, it was 6.8 percent growth. The forecast for this year is $46.3 billion, which will be 5.6 percent growth, according to government figures.
The change for the better is certainly a result of the standard industry influences such as increased housing starts, low interest rates and increased consumer confidence. But the ways in which manufacturers reacted to tight times also helped.
Manufacturers have tried to improve quality of furniture while holding prices down, introduce more exciting designs and promote their products better to the retail dealers and to the general public.
Rowe Furniture Co. of Salem, for instance, instituted a quality management program that increased the efficiency of production so much the company hasn't raised prices in three years. The company also continued to be innovative in showing off its merchandise to retail store representatives.
Rowe, which has an industry reputation for creating visually exciting showrooms, in April built a warehouse with brick walls inside its High Point display space in which to show off sleeper sofas. Inside the "warehouse" was a fabric room with a sitting area where buyers could handle swatches of the many sofa fabrics the company uses.
Getting the attention of retail store representatives is the main point at furniture market shows and was especially important this spring when store buyers, or dealers as the manufacturers call them, had a more bullish attitude than usual.
"They were looking for something different," said Bill Martin, advertising manager of The Lane Co., based in Altavista in Campbell County.
And Lane had it.
The company introduced New Rhythms, a 60-piece collection of contemporary bedroom and living room pieces from the drawing board of Dakota Jackson, the New York furniture designer who claims show-business celebrities as clients.
The pieces brought Lane national media attention and a lot of buyers who wanted to see what a furniture artist would do for a mass market. When they came they saw pieces that were more than furniture, such as a chair covered in a fabric reminiscent of icons like the Wonder Bread wrapper - dots - and casegoods that drew design from the interplay of patterns in the ash wood from which they were built.
Jackson, who Martin said can "talk seven minutes about just a chair," has been designing furniture for 25 years. The early pieces were one-of-a-kind and included a Chinese-puzzle desk that was commissioned by Yoko Ono for John Lennon.
Sofas from Jackson's company still can cost $10,000, but the pieces he has licensed Lane to produce will sell at retail for about $1,500 each. New Rhythms pieces will be made of elm wood and finished only with a clear protective coating.
New Rhythms was "a major contribution to our overall market being strong," Martin said. "Dakota Jackson exceeded our expectations."
By that, Martin meant the contemporary pieces generated the excitement to bring additional buyers to the showroom, who then bought furniture, although not necessarily the Dakota designs. Popularity of the Dakota Jackson pieces, though, could be important to Western Virginia because it is Lane's Rocky Mount plant that will be producing New Rhythms.
In addition to the introductions, Lane also enhanced its home theater furniture collection by following an industry trend to package furniture with electronics. Lane has teamed with Sony Corp.
While Lane went for futuristic looks to create excitement, Daystrom Furniture for the second year is wallowing happily in the the 1950s, producing metal dining sets in the sherbert colors of the '50s Chevrolet. The group is called, what else, BelAir.
"We kind of dreamt up the idea," said Ted Van Benschoten, director of merchandise for Daystrom, which is in South Boston but is owned by LADD Furniture Inc. of High Point.
Benschoten said he was inspired by a notice promoting a leisure suit convention. As the idea for BelAir developed, the looks of the '50s were revamped with larger chairs and a twist or turn of a leg or a table base.
The revived dining pieces also have updated prices. A group that would have sold for $299 in the 1950s goes for $599 and $699 now, Benschoten said. He said the old styles sell quite well in stores like Sears, Roebuck and Co. but are especially popular in Germany and Holland.
Marketing departments are taking a greater role in the furniture business, said Johne Albanese, the director of marketing communications at Bassett Furniture Industries. Albanese said he was asked to be part of the creation of Bassett's major new collection for the April market.
He said it might have been the first time that marketing was brought into the project that soon.
"We started with a marketing problem and sought a solution," he said.
The results, sold as the Solutions collection, include three groups of living room and dining room pieces designed especially for the L-shaped rooms that are in more than half of America's 2,000- to 2,500-square-foot houses.
The groups are Sterling, a neoclassic design in ash wood; Spectra, a contemporary group in pine; and Cascade, an "almost country" look, said Albanese.
Albanese said designers and marketing staff have "mapped out" what they hope is every possibility of room layout for the L-shaped areas to help eliminate guesswork for the homeowners. The layout materials will be available from the retail stores.
"Those rooms are tough to decorate. We solved that problem," he said.
Albanese also said that Bassett came home from the April market "very encouraged. The market overall was clearly one of the best we have had in years."
Dennis Ammons, president of Singer Furniture Co. in Roanoke, said the industry is "finally coming out of the recession."
Now that the consumer appears ready to buy, Singer is striving to increase its identity, Ammons said. The company has placed ads about itself in such publications as Elegant Bride, Amtrak Express and USAir magazines.
Singer's message, Ammons said, is that "we're a furniture company that is part of the industry but we do put the customer first."
Singer also has taken steps to give its promotion and higher-price lines more identity by splitting them between Singer and Manor House divisions. Manor House, which is produced at the Roanoke plant, was introduced in 1993. Its designs sell at retail for $1,800 to $2,000 for a four-piece bedroom suit; a similar group in the promotional lines would retail at $750 to $1,000.
The company, which has its sales offices in the High Point showroom, has now laid out the display area so a potential buyer for Manor House can be shown those pieces without even walking through the company's other displays.
Ammons noted that medium-priced lines like Manor House are good for the company and for the Roanoke plant because sales of furniture at its price level are less affected by market changes.
The recession the furniture industry endured in 1989 to 1991 was one of the "longest and deepest in the past 25 years," said Eugene H. Gardner Jr. in his "Happy Days Are Here Again" report for David L. Babson & Co. Inc.
"Basically furniture purchases are infinitely deferable. As anyone who has gone to a yard sale or antique show can tell you, the stuff can last forever," he said. This means that when the economy is tough, families hold on to the old pieces.
Gardner bases his optimism about the market on the rebound of furniture stocks last year, when they rose nearly 40 percent, and on what he describes as a "definitely leaner and more efficient" industry."
"Intense competition in both retailing and manufacturing has driven the weaker players from the scene. This should enable the stronger competitors to expand into markets now underserved," said Gardner.
by CNB