Rugs come out strong
Indoor-outdoor products winners
By Lissa Wyman -- Furniture Today, March 19, 2007
Las Vegas — The winter market season has ended on a strong note for the rug business as vendors reported good results at both the Las Vegas Surfaces Expo and the New York Home Textiles Market. The shows ran back to back from Feb. 7 to Feb. 16.
At both events, indoor-outdoor products were show-stoppers.
The category stood out as the must-have rug for nearly every type of retailer.
Despite the grumbling about the proliferation of markets, each February show attracts a different type of buyer — Surfaces drawing floor covering specialists the Home Textiles show luring mass market stores.
This year's annual Surfaces event, Feb. 7–9, started just five days after the Las Vegas Market, where many rug vendors had showrooms showed among the furniture, bedding and accessories exhibitors.
Some rug companies opted to keep their World Market Center showrooms open and shuttle buyers back and forth. Others bit the bullet with big booths at Surfaces.
All agreed that each Las Vegas show attracts a distinct breed of buyer, with very little crossover between the two events. Furniture folks go to the Las Vegas Market and floor covering people go to Surfaces.
Oriental Weavers USA had its signature large booth at Surfaces, complete with black and gold Egyptian motifs. "We had everything at Surfaces that we had at the World Market event," said Mike Riley, president.
Nourison emphasized its broadloom carpet lines at Surfaces.
"We treated Surfaces as a carpet event. Our new World Market Center showroom contains our full line of both rugs and broadloom," said Alex Peykar, a principal of Nourison.
"We can't afford to miss either show," said Samir Abu Hadba, general manager of United Weavers of America. "Surfaces is traditionally our number one show, and the World Market Center event was also great. There are two very different types of customers and both our very important to us, so we are determined to commit to both shows."
Momeni, meanwhile, opted out of Surfaces this year, but offered car service for buyers who wanted to visit its new World Market Center showroom.
"We had a real market here. Buyers want to see the new showroom and they also don't want to miss out on our new products," said Ray Ehsani, vice president.
In New York, the art of the deal was more important than the art of the rug at the Home Textiles Market, Feb. 12–16. Mass market stores looked for items to fill price points and get the best pricing on volume purchases.
Best sellers were indoor-outdoor rugs, at retail price points ranging from about $79 to $299 in 5×8 size.
"For the most part, buyers at the Textiles show do not come to Atlanta or Las Vegas or High Point, so the New York market is critical to reach this channel," said Rao Yarlagadda, president of Kas.
New York is the only U.S. market for Montreal-based Carpet Art Deco. The company makes machine-woven rugs in Canada, but also is expanding its imports from China and India, according to Michel Melki, vice president of operations.
Melki said New York buyers were particularly interested in hand-tufted rugs retailing for $129 in 5×8.
"These are killer products," he said. "Imagine a hand-made rug that retails for less than most machine-made items."
With the recent appointment of Paul Sullivan as the top sales executive, Orian has a new sales, marketing and product development team in place.
A best seller at Orian was the Patio collection, a woven group retailing for $99 in 5×8 size. Patio comes in a wide range of natural looks and contemporary and botanical styling.
"We test-marketed this product with a major retail chain and they said it was the most successful floor covering test ever," said Kelley.
