Crink launches motion upholstery importer
By Joan Gunin -- Furniture Today, May 14, 2006
High Point — Industry veteran Laurence Crink launched motion upholstery company Local Motion Only at the April market here.
The company, with backing from Chinese investors and factories there and in Mexico, introduced six frames. Motion sofas, loveseats, recliners and sectionals, and sofa-sleepers and stationary pieces, are offered in leather-match, leather or microfiber covers.
Local Motion Only is touting "American designed comfort." Crink said a 92-inch leather-match dual-motion sofa would target retails of $699 to $799, with the microfiber version also aggressively priced.
"We took commitments for 1,200 containers at market," he said.
Crink said he has signed a letter of agreement to acquire a seven-year-old, 85,000-square-foot upholstery manufacturing plant in Tijuana, Mexico, which currently makes private-label product for retailers.
In late August, Local Motion Only will begin shipping product assembled in Tijuana, with Chinese cut-and-sewn microfiber covers, and fully finished leather-match upholstery produced at a 2.5-million-square-foot factory in Shenzhen, China, Crink said. Leggett & Platt components will be used, he said.
With over 30 years in the furniture industry, Crink most recently was executive vice president of Chinese leather upholstery producer DeCoro, leaving in October 2005. He was responsible for sales, marketing and merchandising in the United States and Canada.
Previously, he was vice president for fabric upholstery manufacturer Mike Cims for seven years, and earlier was associated with retailers Fedco Home Stores, RB Furniture and W&J Sloane.
The upholstery will be shipped container-direct from China and by truck from Mexico. Local Motion Only has warehousing in New York, Los Angeles and Mississippi, Crink said.
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