Rug vendors see potential in youth
By Jenny Heinzen York and Tanya K. Merritte -- Furniture Today, August 31, 2009
HIGH POINT — Rugs are a fun and easy way to update a child's room, but the market over the years has been dominated by the throw rug category. That's starting to change, though, as more and more full-line rug vendors are getting into the kids game and offering full-size area rugs of better quality and materials.
Momeni Rugs added a youth line in January. Called 'Lil Mo, the collection includes three divisions, according to Marlys Giordano, director of marketing and product development for Momeni. Classic includes infant- and nursery-appropriate rugs, Whimsy is for the juvenile market, and Hipster is directed at “tweens and beyond,” she said. Each line includes five to seven designs.
“For years we had been asked to do it,” Giordano said. “But we wanted to make sure that when we did it, we did it correctly. So we did a lot of research and developed a line that's unlike anything else and it's gotten a very good response.”
Momeni launched in a very difficult economic climate, but that was a calculated decision, she said, because of the relative strength of the youth market.
“We knew where the economy was at — and we looked at (the kids market) as a bright spot,” she said. “Kids and pets will be the last categories to suffer. You don't want a child to know things are bad … you never want to say 'no' to a child. In this economy, we felt like this was the one thing that would stay stable.”
Surya recently unveiled the Playground collection of round rugs, hand-hooked of 100% poly-acrylic to be resistant to stains, fading and wear. The rugs are available in 4, 6 and 8-foot rounds, in a variety of themes and colors appropriate for all-age children.
Capel Rugs does about 10% of its annual business in kids' products, largely focused on mass market and catalog consumers, according to Bud Young, vice president. The company has produced kids' rugs for about eight years, targeting the tween demographic and price points of $299 to $499 for 4 by 6 size.
Trish Rempen, owner of Foreign Accents, said rug collections targeted to youth make up a small percentage of her company's business, but many of the adult rugs appeal to young people because of the colorful styles and bold designs. Her distribution includes Top 100 furniture retailers, independents, online retailers, contemporary and transitional furniture stores, design showrooms and interior designers, architects and staging companies.
Rempen said she has a good outlook for the rest of 2009 going into 2010, especially on the youth side of the business. “We all have our stories of difficulties, but I feel things are clearly improving,” she said. “We are celebrating our 25th anniversary and you can almost feel the energy of people wanting to get moving again.”
Kim Barta, brand manager for Shaw Living, echoed the cautious optimism for the category. “There's not a lot of anything that's growing right now,” she said. “But (youth is) a trend that is going to get stronger.”
She said youth is a very small part of her company's market, accounting for about 1% of its sales. But the company has had the Kathy Ireland Home Young Attitudes license since 2006 and the Kathy Ireland adult license for about 10 years. Its distribution includes flooring stores, furniture stores, rug specialty shops, big boxes and home improvement stores.
“There seems to be some growth in (the youth) market,” Capel's Young said. “It's certainly important to us — we continue to put effort into the product. But we are having trouble finding the retailer to put the products together.”
To that end, Capel has developed a unique Web strategy that Young said he hopes will allow smaller dealers to carry the line. The company accepts orders directly from consumers on Capelrugs.com, which are then routed back to a preferred vendor based on the ZIP code of the order. The retailer processes the order, keeps the profits, and Capel drop-ships the rug directly to the buyer.
“Not every consumer has access to a baby-only store,” he said. “And it can be hard to find these products at a floor-covering store.” But he said independent retailers can work with Capel to set up a customized Web site with only youth designs and still be able to capture some of the market without having to inventory or even display the rugs.
Barta said retailers are concerned about traffic in their stores, so her company has put together some events to help drive business. “Everyone recognizes that this is still a difficult time that we're in and we're all looking for an upturn,” she said. Shaw is launching a fall sweepstakes, inviting shoppers to log onto the shawfloors.com Web site to win prizes and download a $200 coupon that can be used at stores, generating traffic for retailers. The promotion will be backed with national ad campaign and will run September through November.
The mood among Foreign Accents' customers is pragmatic and more down to earth than in recent years, Rempen said, and she thinks that is a good thing. “We are all forced to look clearly at what we do and how we do it, and we'll be stronger for coming through these challenging times,” she said.
On key to being stronger is continuing with product development, even when times are tough, Momeni's Giordano said. “Rugs in general are luxury goods and people are worried about losing their homes, not outfitting them,” she said. “But we still have to develop new products and look ahead — we can't be stale.”
One trend that Young said he sees driving the strength of the youth category is the move to hard-surface flooring in bedrooms — especially kids' rooms. Hard floors are easier to clean and less likely to trigger allergies, so he thinks this is a trend that will continue.
As far as style trends go, he said that boys' looks are dominated by camouflage colors and motifs, while the most popular girls' styles feature argyle patterns in bold primary colors.
“We don't try to correlate to any piece of fabric in a room,” he said. “We just want to have the color story that's easy for the mother to coordinate the rest of the room with.”
At Shaw, tweens are the important driving force in today's home decor trends, Barta said. Fashion, entertainment, technology and the environment are key influences that inspire design and color, and the most current trends are music-inspired graphics in black-and-white color schemes and bohemian and ethnic patterns in bold color palettes. Classic patterns like argyle, plaid and gingham are updated, taking on a larger scale and brighter color combinations.
Giordano said the 'Lil Mo Hipster rugs in particular are very trend-oriented. “You can afford to be a bit trendier because kids change so quickly,” she said. “You can take more risks.”
And staying on-trend is the key, because of where the marketplace is.
“As always, when furniture sales are slow, rugs sell well,” Rempen said. “You can change the entire look of the any room by changing the rug. It's a wonderful way to design.”
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