Orleans Furniture to close Mississippi case goods plant
Company will focus on imports
Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, November 17, 2009
COLUMBIA, Miss. — Wood furniture source Orleans Furniture says it is closing its case goods manufacturing plant here and plans to focus on imports.Company President and CEO Ed Marshall confirmed that the plant is closing.
A local TV station, WDAM, said the plant employs 75 people. It said the company will retain 20 to 25 employees to run its import division.
Talkback
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I long time ago, I learned not to open my mouth without knowing all the facts. I have been with Orleans for over 26 years. I've had the privledge of working for one of the finest men in the business for most of that time. When freight rates were going up and as well as pricing in China, it looked like we had a future in print goods. Guess what? Freight is a little over half of what it was a few short months ago and we have come up with real value with a little differnt styling from one of our China factories. I have had responsibilty for the West with Orleans. Our new groups are in nearly every major store in Ca and NV. Walkers is running three sets in their ads, Deardens has all three new groups in their mailers and we can't keep up with them. Just a sample. I don't know if this decesion will be as succesful as we think it will be, but let's be REAL. There are three things important in the West anyway, price, price, price. We are getting floor space back in spite of unemployment easily reaching 30% in parts of the state. We aren't the first to close domestic plants, we kept ours open longer than many, more will come.
Bob Scott - 2009-18-11 01:33:58 EST -
Even Mississippi is not cheap enough when your product is so boring and vanilla that it is reduced to a commodity at a price. Price became the driving factor rather than the design of their product itself. Orleans was always a quirky price driven company. Going to China won't help them in the long run because there will be tons of companies making the same thing they make, who will all be competing on price. They could have chosen to be inventive with their product design and stayed at home with their manufacturing. But like the rest of the industry,they would rather die than change direction. What everyone again is not seeing is that FOB pricing does not compensate for the costs of putting payments upfront for containers, shipping costs, warehousing costs etc. while you cannot use your capital. In addition if they reduce their prices i.e. 30%, they cannot grow the population another 30% to meet the previous years figures. If the price drops and the US population stays the same, then you only kill yourself in the end. The public does not see any intrinsic value and it all goes to THE DUMP. Why is this market truth so difficult for the US manufacturers to wrap their brains around? There are very doable answers to keep manufacturing at home now. But the lemmings prefer running over the cliff towards being Asian owned in the next 10 or less years.
Robert Mark - 2009-17-11 21:02:33 EST -
Just what the industry needs, more cheap, poorly made imported furniture.
Let's continue the race to the bottom; who can sell the most poor quality furniture for the lowest price.
Jack Lord - 2009-17-11 19:00:12 EST
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