New San Fran moves pay off in wood
By Powell Slaughter -- Furniture Today, February 8, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO — Despite buyer traffic described as spotty to adequate, case goods exhibitors rated the winter market here a considerable improvement over the winter 2003 edition.
Companies venturing into new product directions and categories reported strong acceptance from dealers anticipating a better year in 2004.
Greengrass, an importer of promotional to midpriced case goods and upholstery, unveiled a step-up concept called Euro Castle in a dedicated showroom. Euro Castle offers packages of bedroom, living room, dining room, occasional and accents, and top-of-bed goods like pillows and spreads.
"Euro Castle has a higher style approach than Greengrass, and we'll protect distribution on this," said Tony Guo, vice president. "It has a totally separate sales force. These are our own designs from a design team dedicated to Euro Castle."
Where Greengrass has complete bedrooms retailing to $2,499, an upholstered Euro Castle bed goes home with a consumer for $3,500.
Good Cos. concentrated on raising the style value of its promotional bedrooms. A French collection features the company's first metal bed, and an island-oriented bedroom has reeded and woven rattan-look accents. A pencil-post bedroom retailing at $499 for five pieces has generous scale and an urban lifestyle look.
"We had two goals here," said President Sarah Garcia. "First, although the import business is very strong, we're trying to stretch the envelope in terms of our own plant capabilities. Second, come up with the hottest price points possible."
Good Cos. also started shipping from a 25,000-square-foot expandable East Coast warehouse in Archdale, N.C., in January, and plans a Texas warehouse to back up existing distribution facilities in Tijuana, Mexico, and Carson, Calif.
"We're totally committed to the East Coast now," Garcia said. "We signed a lease on a larger showroom in High Point."
Importer Richwood, which will come to High Point for the first time in October, introduced a bedroom program with product sourced in China.
"We traditionally were known as a dining room supplier with conservative looks in oak," said Antonio Romero, vice president of marketing. "We have a new partner in China we're working with to expand into bedroom. We have 12 groups here and plan 12 more for High Point."
Beds retail from $999 to $1,999, and Romero has plans to go to all English dovetailing on drawers.
Oakwood Interiors, which recently expanded into alder to complement its longstanding oak bedroom line, is looking to become more important to existing dealers and broaden its customer base with its Cameo introduction.
"We had been known for deep carvings on oak with relatively simple finishes," said Walter Huhn, vice president of sales administration. "With Cameo, we're using a superior grade of alder with more character in the wood itself, a 15-step finish, and travertine inserts. The response opening day was fantastic."
Emerald Home Furnishings did better than it anticipated in San Francisco in traffic and order-writing on new product, said Greg Zihlman, national sales manager.
"We brought out two more collections than normal here," he said. "We showed retailers environmental packages where they can get bedroom and dining room in one move, and we're working this time with some direct-mail pieces and circulars, which we haven't had."
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