InsideFurniture

IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARY: In two years, Brian Casey’s steady hand on the High Point Market’s tiller is making a difference

Happy Anniversary to Brian Casey, with whom a supportive and grateful industry celebrates his achievement-filled two years leading the High Point Market Authority!

Arriving in High Point with an important mission, he hit the ground running with street-tested intelligence and confidence.

Quickly, he regrouped, strengthened and repurposed a staff of professionals, whom he credits for the Market Authority’s successes.

Under Brian’s authentic guidance, a small talented, hardworking and energetic staff has won over critics — including me — in congealing and extending the power and influence of the world’s premier home furnishings Market.

Brian’s effective, yet unassuming and disarming style constitutes the enduring strength and attraction of High Point Market supported by and in close proximity to a highly regarded creative class of industry executives, designers, studios, marketers and leading service providers of all types.

PAYING THE PRICE: Desperate retailers race to the bottom with tantalizing false hope of low prices

Desperate, delusional retailers believe low-balling fearful consumers will cause a stampede of business. Not in this new world.

Doing what you’ve always done only gives you want you’ve always got. At best, some possible short term success, but long term brand and credibility erosion.

Who cares, as long as you’re doing something-anything to drive business, even if the feel good activity of selling price actually masks sustainable accomplishment of transporting people to comfortable living.

The holy grail of price merchandising is wholly full of holes. And the first rule of holes is: Stop digging and praying that preying on consumers with low prices to get’ em into the stores is nothing more than mercantile idolatry.

FROM THE SUMMIT: The attraction and stability of the High Point Market exceeded expectations

In the midst of uncertainty, the tough-minded, intrepid merchants and manufacturers attended to their needs in ascending the High Point Market.

Surprise-surprise to the delight-delight of many showrooms, attendance and attitude rose to a higher point than what had been privately predicted and expected in High Point.

Of course, the reassuring validation of the strength of High Point rightly produces a positive spin. As an enduring institution, the Market's product and marketing opportunities for participants maintains a positive spin on business, even in challenging times.

Just ask the retailers and designers who invested in attending and ascending the High Point Market. From the summit of most showrooms, buyers received a return of powerful ideas and opportunities far greater in product and performance than if they remained at home. (In future postings here, learn how High Point is poised to overcome its challenges into a reconstituted juggernaut.)

As an indefatigable home furnishings village with its unique charm, the High Point Market continues to be a mercantile high point, a mountain range of business opportunity. It's where smart buyers find easier paths to ascend to the heights of their merchandising potential, allowing them to rise above, capturing and receiving breathtaking vistas of how to differentiate their stores and studios.

PREPARING FOR TURNAROUND: Rational reinvention paints a brighter horizon

Viva optimism! Yes, the current business cycle will change for the better, and it’s not next week, but it’s tomorrow, as in the future.

Riding the business cycle on a rocky road is fatiguing, frustrating and infuriating.

No easy choice, even though the map to smooth pavement is in our pockets, with a frightening catch: The map is blank, requiring action.

Yeh, you’ve got to be our own mercantile cartographer, mapping your own paths, and that means the road to better times starts now with planning and sound judgment.

For the best and brightest, much of that planning occurred this week here at the High Point Market, where the manifold choices offer real hope as well as way forward.

Too bad many wait-and-see retailers stayed away from the robust opportunity, whose cost in avoidance is incalculable and cannot be made up waiting for better times.

It’s too late to scramble when times begin to change. The verity of business Darwinism is clear: The strongest and most adaptable survive.

What retailers missed in High Point cannot be made up this summer in Las Vegas, where the bright neon masks a limited product assortment and the conspicuous absence of a critical mass of leading vendors.

Back to reality. Action speaks louder than woulds, as in, “I would make changes, if this and that happened.” Yaddah, yaddah, yaddah and the excuse horse you didn’t ride in on.

For timid merchants sitting on their assets and staying at the ranch, you can ride high. You get a second change in October. Start planning.

Remember, snooze, you lose.

FILLING UP HIGH POINT: Iconoclast High Pointer Scott Morgan makes waves in converting gasoline station into arty-edgy Cultural Embassy

Inimitable and irrepressible Scott Morgan knows how to capture attention with marketing esprit de corps. The transplanted Californian, by way of Maine, is making his mark on High Point with the Cultural Embassy and the home furnishings industry that has etched his life.

In a ramshackle abandoned High Point gasoline station at the corner of English Road and Elm Street, a few blocks from the heart of the main Market showroom district, Scott and artist friend Katy Allgeyer have pumped up, fueled and transformed an eyesore with an attractive assortment of home furnishings.

Debuting on April 5, the arty-edgy Cultural Embassy will greet delegations of marketgoers with a unique blend of high-end furniture (new, vintage, and antique), fine art, rare and beautiful objects, and the handcrafted rugs of the Himalayan Rug Company produced by women artisans in Nepal.

For unmistakable identity, the former filling station sports a happy goldfish — yet to be named — as an endearing symbol to be the “auspicious portal to good taste, fine art, great design, unusual furniture, handcrafted rugs, rare objects of beauty, and uniquely hip cultural experiences.”

OPEN TO BYE: A market mind is a terrible thing to waste

Retailers with limited open-to-buy can still bank on a gazillion open-to-think dollars, attending next week’s High Point Market.

Prudent merchants possessing an open mind and a willingness to see the world differently can always find new ways of enriching consumers and themselves with fresh ideas.

Without buying a string and splinter of furniture in High Point, merchants can splurge on valuable time to savor all the new ideas they cannot know staying in their retail bunkers.

You can’t tell me that investing the time and energy in visiting well-appointed showrooms and talking shop to colleagues is a waste of time.

When one idea can make a big difference, the excuse of having no open to buy dollars is lame brain. Because a High Point Market mind is a terrible thing to waste.

At the High Point Market, a retailer can be a joyful kid in a huge candy shop of more styles and designs, plans and opportunities than anywhere else.

For retailers who prefer to be stay-at-home M.O.M.S. (Merchants Offering Meager Solutions), enjoy the dull scenery.

In stark contrast, your smart and savvy competitors are learning how to pass you by attending the High Point Market, better known as the Olympics of the Home Furnishings world.

Remember, what happens in High Point furnishes the world!

IDENTITY BRANDING: Attractive estate gives savvy manufacturers a way to extend brand with landed class

Manufacturers wanting a quick path to branding themselves with retailers and consumers need to look no further than AlCyn House pictured here.

Why? AlCyn House’s splendor can easily serve an executive residence, corporate showcase house, living showroom, purposeful retreat and High Point Market lodging for select retailers, among  many powerful marketing possibilities. Click on image to enlarge.

As you surmised, AlCyn House is for sale, and I am honored to be involved in providing marketing support to savvy people recognizing its astounding potential.

As for achieving marketing differentiation, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist marketer to realize how a furniture manufacturer could transform this splendid estate into an enduring brand builder and extender.

I could only imagine what would happen if Martha Stewart or another bon ton designer got hold of this gem. Watch out!

Minutes from High Point in nearby Trinity, AlCyn House is tucked away on nearly 27 verdant acres of serene woods and embraced by majestic lawns.

This special villa is a 12,000 square foot commercially constructed house, with 24 rooms —11 bedrooms including 4 bedroom suites and 5,000 square foot tall-ceiling basement.

The structure is super energy efficient, with monthly utilities averaging $321, which means it was "green" years before the term came to be associated with environmental consciousness.

Incidentally, AlCyn House captured the enviable attention Duke Energy officials who marveled at high efficiency created by owners John and Carolyn Kasarda.

An engineer and management consultant with furniture clients, John designed the house and supervised its construction. As empty nesters, he and Carolyn want to downsize.

John will delight in discussing AlCyn House's unique history and special features. If you wish a personal visit, you need to arrange it with broker Dwain Skeen, 336-885-1701.

For many years, members of Henredon’s crack sales team have stayed there, prompting a story in Furniture|Today.

AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL: Product patriotism will reign from see to shining see in the showrooms in High Point

American made goods will be high on the shopping list of many retailers attending next week’s High Point Market.

Merchants big and small see the marketing advantage of product patriotism. Rightly or wrongly, they sense simmering consumer angst against Chinese made goods.

Given the political and economic climate, the anti-Sino sentiment arises from enough disturbing news about tainted food stuffs, medicine and toys to spook consumers into distrusting temperament.

In some circles, influential retailers and compliant American-based manufacturers are studying ways to cast aspersions on Chinese made furniture. Their strategies include lobbying for higher quality standards as a de facto tariffs and laws mandating country of origin labeling.

Despite higher quality, more economically priced goods flowing from China, a consensus among some retailers and North American vendors is a fervent believe import costs will rise.

They are banking on currency changes, inevitable political turbulence, continued quality control issues and inherent problems with unwieldy supply chains: delays, erratic delivery and excessive time in mistake recovery.

The positive American product patriotism extends to goods from Canada and Mexico, as well as Central and South America.

No one expects retailers to say, “adios,” soon to all Chinese furniture, but vendors will be put on notice this Market that many more merchants will be singing, “Oh, beautiful for spacious styles and amber waves of names” from North America.