Do messy questions have tidy answers?
Carole Sloan, Senior Contributing Editor -- Furniture Today, April 9, 2006
As the surge to offshore sourcing continues to grow, the upholstered furniture segment is faced with a number of challenges unique to its business.
Emerging first and foremost is the price differential between the same frame with made-in-China fabrics on a made-in-China frame, vs. the same frame with special-order fabrics made in the United States. Whew! What a difference! And the challenge is to try to merge those disparities.
Then there's the difference between a totally made-in-China frame and married fabric, compared with another frame from the same supplier that is offered with a range of upmteen special-order fabrics. The latter appear to be out of line in price because they are not totally sourced offshore.
The differences are becoming more and more identifiable.
Both situations need to be addressed so that the folks on the firing line — the retail floor sales associates — have a way of explaining these differences to shoppers.
Then there's the challenge of how to develop fabrics for a collection of furniture or a specific frame, assess the interest and get the stuff from over there to here in an appropriate time frame. Speed to market is an ever-more-important element in the way furniture is being bought and sold.
Although the minimums are dropping on a per SKU basis for Chinese fabrics, they remain significantly more than what most furniture makers can afford to invest on a gamble. So the challenge is how to know what and when to OK for a full run.
What seems to be happening is that fabric companies here are building the model per SKU, sampling the needed yardage for customers with the specs, waiting for retailer acceptance and then transferring the specs to be duplicated in China.
It appears to be a tidy answer to a messy question. Will it work? Stay tuned.
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