InsideFurniture

UNMANLY PRESENCE: Home Furnishings can be a man’s sport if presented as the new objects of their desire

Rarely are home furnishings presented well, or at all, in many men’s publications. Neither in evocative editorial nor advertising messages, the absence of sofas, chairs, beds, tables and accessories are conspicuously missing.

Seems these publications never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Clearly, the absence of any virile and mercantile appeal to the sensitive, inner man and how satisfyhing the satisfaction-driven beast can be good business and beautiful.

Want a classic example? Just look at September’s Men’s Journal. No less billed as the “Style & Design Issue,” with virtually no mention and just a brief, brief passing of anything resembling furniture or home furnishings.

There, among the insufferable verbiage, luring and lurid ads filled with expected babes, cars, jewelry, cigars, apparel and liquor amidst a vast array of incredible, boy toys.

Here's the skimpy clad home furnishings offering in the manly publication: A $7,700 space age recliner from Domus (page 118), plus a way-out stacking patio ensemble obelisk at $9,890 (page 120) and a Knu eco desk at $1,460 (page 122) which was more of a sleek table.

Sorry if my innured mind missed any other home furnishings item that was clearly inconspicuous in a veritable cornucopia of hot stuff. If it existed in those pages heralding conspicuous consumption, the missing home furnishings probably was buried under the bounty and booty.

For whatever reason, the Men’s Journal editorial and the publishing staffs are apparently oblivious to the significant appeal of great furniture that can presented as objects of male desire. Surprisingly, the slick pages didn't even present a classic male chauvinistic, hedonistic bed all tussled about after a ravishing escapade. What gives?

Men's Journal needs a couple of savvy women editors and ad directors who know how to appeal to men. They know that men want home furnishings, with the right romance and call to action.

To the mag's top man, Jan Wenner, get out from that Rolling Stone and turn on your male readers to the home furnishings in all the appealing ways to get into those shapely drawers, caress some great legs, tickle the fine doors, snuggle with lovely cushions and do it on the wall with fantastic images viewed under the loving light of a fixture of one’s most romantic dreams.

What retailers and manufacturers can do? Find ways to appeal to men's desire to please themselves and their partners, spouses and significant others with the MANtra of living better, vigorously and manly with home furnishings.

Just ask a woman.

READIN’, RIGHTIN’ WEDNESDAY: Random ramblings of mind to prompt thought and some action

HIGH POINT OR BUST!: Discount airline Skybus has chosen High Point area’s regional airport in the Piedmont Triad as a growth focus.

Beginning next February, the High Point Market will benefit from direct flights from Los Angeles, Florida, Midwest and Northeast. Every flight will reserve 10 seats for only $10.

Will Skybus become the home furnishings unofficial official airline? If the idea takes off, so will the airline as it expands to other key cities, and that means easier access to the home furnishings capital.

Check out the news story from the News & Record and Enterprise, plus the news release from the Market Authority:

“The Skybus decision to make PTIA its newest hub means that we finally have a low-cost carrier that will link the Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point area with Florida, the Gulf Coast, East Coast and the West Coast,” said Market Authority President Brian Casey.

Emphasizing the West Coast connection, he explained that previous flights from California have “been relatively cost-prohibitive for buyers who wish to attend our Market. We see the Skybus business model as a perfect fit for this region and our Market.”

MADE IN AMERICA REALLY IMPORTANT: Coming out of the fall High Point Market, smart retailers openly acknowledged they can benefit from prominently identifying furniture and home furnishings actually manufactured in the United States.

The same merchandising sentiment emerged at a recent leadership conference at Lenoir-Rhyne College, where the subject emerged in various sessions and discussions.

The label Made in America is not considered jingoistic, especially at the higher end. By contrast, imported goods from China and the Pacific Rim are not inherently inferior or substandard, although some merchants may have the additional burden of confirming quality to potentially suspicious or skittish consumers.

LEGACY’S LAS VEGAS DEFECTION: The import-marketing company’s decision to abandon Las Vegas was anticlimactic, since it was rumored for months.

No matter how others may spin the story, Legacy’s defection may prompt questions about the financial rationale undergirding its decision and what, if anything, that could mean for the fledgling Western trade show.

The News & Record broke the story last Friday. The industry trade publications' websites linked to the North Carolina’s newspaper’s story.

A LEGACY IN HIGH POINT: Brains over brawn will keep High Point's Market strong as it moves forward

In home furnishings, the enduring brand is still High Point, not anywhere else, especially the wannabe regional trade shows.

At a recent One Guilford meeting, economist Dr. Andrew C. Brod of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro outlined reasons that brains — the intellectual capital and creative class of High Point and the region — over brawn and bluster elswhere will prevail.

Here's what he had to say:

I’ve been asked to give you a briefing on the role of the High Point furniture market as an economic engine in Guilford County.

On one level, the market’s economic footprint is obvious to anyone who’s tried to go to a restaurant or book a hotel room for visiting family during the market. But there’s more to the story than just crowded restaurants.

In 2004, my Center for Business and Economic Research at UNCG’s Bryan School of Business and Economics released an economic-impact analysis of the High Point market. Our study found that the market generated an annual fiscal impact in the Triad of nearly $1.1 billion, and it supported over 13,000 jobs.

The surprise of the study was that two-thirds of the overall impact derived from activities taking place between markets, not during them. Prior to our study, economic impact had been construed primarily as spending by market attendees on restaurants and hotels.

To be sure, such spending is important, but what our study found was that most of the market’s impact resulted from support activities. For example, there’s the reconstruction, redesign, repainting, and recarpeting of showrooms between markets.

When we talk about furniture, we often focus on manufacturing and supply chains and hard-edged issues like that. As a result, we often forget that furniture is a style business, and it’s essential for exhibitors to find just the right aesthetic setting in which to feature their merchandise.

WHAT’S IN STORE?: For starters, how about dreams in a mercantile retreat that resembles more of a home furnishings spa than just a store

A store is just a store, and usually just a bore and no more than an ordinary place to snore which is nothing more.

Peddlers sell, merchants satisfy and fulfill. Too many retailers operate stores instead of home furnishings spas where people want to dream about and obtain all the benefits of comfort, function and beauty.

Yes, a mindset is order and needs to be out of order to be extraordinary. People wanting to live better and more comfortably need all the reasons to confirm the aspirations. Stores can bore and spas produce ahs of joy.

Providing home furnishings is dream weaving, and that’s complex and heady, and cannot be conquered by quick solutions.

Too many retailers act more like fishermen, casting out their lines as the master bait a variety of hooks just to snag the a mermaid shopper while most swim by and beyond the enticing bait.

Call some retailers Ishmaels, as they chase the Moby Dicks only to snag themselves with their own nets, hooks and sinkers.

Stores sell and spas retell and express the joys of living better to connect with the dreams, wishes and aspirations of people wanting more than a discount.

The surmountable obstacle is that most people need a helping hand and not a hand out of sales patois. Asking and offering endearing and enduring assistance is genuine and noble.

Merchants merchandise with their eyes on the prize of satisfying people, while peddlers peddle, paddle and prattle.

The difference between merchandisers is what separates the men from the boys and endears those sensitive men recognizing the personal and professional rewards of embracing their feminine sensibilities.

Peddlers can promote a scheme but can’t sell a dream. Only caring merchants who satisfy customers’ dreams with the reality of sustained comfort, function and beauty are the winners who know what’s in store.

INDUSTRY HEART AND SOUL: In and around High Point, the home furnishings industry's nuero-cardio-vascular system still resides

In the afterglow of the High Point Market's Fall Classic, I kept thinking about all the curious and substantive elements of the industry's capital city.

As I said last May in an affirmative posting (appears below if you missed it), the creative class resides in and around High Point.

It's not in the cities where the regional trade shows reside, where the dazzling diversions can be intoxicating, yet have little to do with the foundations of an industry.

Here's more proof of the thriving creative class that keeps High Point strong: The Bernice Bienenstock Furniture Library. On your next visit here, go on over and exult in the treasures and riches.

Briefly, this 35-year-old indispensible institution thrives. It holds and cherishes the world's largest collection of volumes on the history of furniture. As a magnet to all serious designers and students of furniture, the library holds more than 7,000 volumes that can be found no where else.

Additionally, the library provides 800 titles of current books can be purchased, in a marvelous, stately stone house at 1009 Main Street. For more information , call Curator Carl Vuncannon, 336-883-4011 or click on his name to send an e-mail.

Here's my May 24 posting:

SUBSTANCE OVER STYLE: High Point’s dominance as industry’s primary and formidable knowledge home meridian

A significant disproportion of the furniture industry’s executive and creative class — its brains, heart and soul — rsides and works in and around High Point, North Carolina.

More than home of the world’s premier market center for furniture and home furnishings, High Point and the region is the primary working habitat to an estimated 15,000 influential people directly and indirectly involved in home furnishings and the semiannual international High Point Market each Spring and Fall.

Everyday in and around High Point, furniture’s incomparable and talented creative class is actively involved in designing, marketing, manufacturing, transporting, sourcing, financing, and warehousing furniture and home furnishings. Key trade publications and important industry associations are home in High Point.

Given the preponderance of the industry’s concentrated and interrelated foundation radiating from High Point, most people correctly assume and acknowledge the logic of basing operations in the furniture capital of the world.

For any doubters, the definitive observation of George Revington, chief executive of Home Meridian, confirms the strength of the region in announcing his decision to base company executive offices in High Point. Home Meridian is parent of the merger of Samuel Lawrence Furniture and Pulaski Furniture, formerly of Arizona and Virginia, respectively.

"We have showrooms here," he said about High Point, as quoted in the Greensboro News & Record. "Our design staffs are primarily in High Point. The finishing companies we primarily do business with are in High Point. And High Point is kind of the intellectual capital of the furniture business, and it seems like the natural place for us to be."

Resonating Rationale. Revington’s sterling validation of High Point resonates for all the reasons he enumerated and more. In particular, Home Meridian's investment here delivers a gratifying return on the investment, where sustainability is easier, dynamic and economical. Comparatively, High Point and the region provide an enviable low cost base of operations, especially for creating and sustaining expansive showrooms where the inherent value is self evident.

The power and influence of the High Point region to the world’s home furnishings industry is indisputable. And as a significant income producing segment, the industry’s impressive creative class may be less visible than the crown jewel of home furnishings Markets, but no one should discount how critical this segment is to the industry’s continual well being.

The economic and political power of the High Point Market and supportive creative class is a crucial fact North Carolina ’s legislators need to recognize more affirmatively and in a world class context.

Lest the legislature misconstrue High Point’s power, the Market and its attendant creative class drive significant business and enhance the attraction of the state and the cast of thousands it delivers annually as good will ambassadors. The smart people of this significant aggregate who serve the world home furnishings industry are resident voters, too, and they can and will make a difference in close elections.

As lawmakers prudently prepare to invest in keeping the High Point Market strong and competitive, they are also assuring the primary, secondary and tertiary industry support segments can continue to be a vital component of an industry known to be a renewable economic resource.

ASK KNOT WHAT BUT HOW: High Point Market’s interrelated constellation of showrooms ties an enviable knot of strength bar none

Every High Point Market inaugurates new opportunities. Even though all the disparate showrooms compete vigorously with one another, they are all hard working yeomen on the Good Ship Market.

In their own ways, the Market sailors essentially row together, pulling their own weight while moving the Market to all the retail ports o’call.

But the Market’s strength depends on mutual cooperation, and that unified industry approach confirms the verity of:

Ask not what the High Point Market can do for you. Ask what you can do for the High Point Market!

The job of the driving buyer traffic to High Point is a shared responsibility. Everyone needs to do more. Not just as spouting feel good words, but real action.

If some exhibitors grumble about buyer traffic, then the fair question to ask is: What did those companies do to induce attendance?

A Market is only as successful as the Market’s participants desire to make it successful. In High Point, the Market Authority can only do so much. The remaining part of the shared responsibility falls on the exhibitors and their corps of representatives.

Years ago when I was involved in the management of the San Francisco Mart, a smart, responsible tenant — the late Jerry Bertram of Landmark Furniture of Los Angeles — said it was the Mart’s role to sponsor the Market and his job to attract retailers to his showroom.

Yes, the reps are the key. While personal incentive is important, the sense of the greater good is at play.

I have sneaking suspicion that some reps dissuade their tier 2 and 3 retailers from attending High Point. Out of fear that reps fear retailers might shop other showrooms in High Point, those reps actually cut off their market noses to spite their market faces.

Again: Ask not what the High Point Market can do you for you. Ask what you can do for the High Point Market.

MY MISSTEP: Keeping the High Point Market Family Together

My October 4 posting erroneously impugned Merchandise Mart Properties, one of the stars in the High Point Market constellation of showrooms.

In discussing the positive reception of InterHall, I thoughtlessly lumped MMPI into the group of non-High Point ogglers.

Yes, InterHall captured the attention and imagination of many other showroom complexes.

The focus of my blog's attention was on the gaggle of regional markets — Las Vegas Market, Atlanta and others — whose leasing team members could usually be found "admiring" InterHall.

Free enterprise is great, but not necessarily free.

MISSING AT MARKET: Lost in High Point with style, design and oppotunity

Up front and personal, yes, for sure, with some of you. Attending the High Point Market pumped me up and all those savvy folks wanting to remain in business.

My impressions on the action will be posted over the next few days. Thanks for being patient.

The buzz coming out of High Point is InterHall, a bustling, vibrant palate of temporary exhibitors who have left a permanent impression.

More about InterHall later, but a conspicuous endorsement of the IHFC advantage came from an unlikely cast of admirers: the leasing teams principally from the Las Vegas Market, America's Mart-Atlanta and others.

On their intrigued faces, the Wow-countenance kept their eyebrows visibly pronounced.

Stay connected, I'l be back.