Sectionals offer choice, comfort
By Gary Evans -- Furniture Today, April 30, 2007
High Point — Sectionals are strong again, and in a wide variety of sizes and shapes to meet the way today's consumers are living.
A key element in the design of sectionals, highly evident at the March High Point Market, was products that could be grouped together or used apart according to the taste and space of homeowners.
Emerging as a hot direction, based on the large number of companies doing them this market, were small, two-piece L-shaped groupings with a built-in chaise.
A clever model from Best Home Furnishings, the Talbert, turns a simple three-over-three sofa into a small two-piece sectional simply by substituting a chaise cushion and sliding an ottoman under it.
This design gives the company's retailers the versatility of three or four options merchandised in the space of only one product: a sofa, a sofa and ottoman, a sectional or just an ottoman. Since the Talbert also is a sofa-sleeper, there's an additional opportunity for sales.
Building bigger tickets
Sectionals lead to bigger sales, both for the retailer and the manufacturer.
"They're very important to us," said Selig Drezner, president of DL&S Inds., a small upholstery company based in High Point. "You sell more furniture. You sell at least three pieces."
Throughout the market, stationary producers were looking at serving a variety of consumers' seating needs through sectionals. Some new units were large, durable and deep, designed for comfort and family use centered around the growing popularity of the Great Room and entertainment center.
Other companies, including Lazar, introduced curvaceous, flowing designs as show-off pieces for the style-oriented. And there were plenty of commercial in-betweens that weren't that exciting in terms of style but still will be satisfying to the consumer who wants something without risk.
Whatever the approach, it's not the big, square lumbering look of the 1970s, another period of high popularity for sectionals. This market, producers were looking to maximize functionality and flexibllity — offering pieces that could be grouped, separated, regrouped and taken apart again at the customer's whim.
Multiple configurations
Avenue Six, which makes UPS-shippable, ready-to-assemble upholstery, offers pieces priced at $400 to $500 that can be expanded into different shapes to conform to room specs. The company and others, like Couture International on the higher end, features pieces that slide together over an attached table, making a single-piece sofa. That way, other pieces in a sectional configuration could end up as a chair or a small armless sofa in another part of the room.
Midpriced upholstery producer Clayton Marcus continued to expand its sectional offerings this market, introducing two new numbers.
"They really sold well," said Allison McCall, merchandise manager. "It's a great special-order product," she added, noting the company's sectionals can be customized with different fabrics, slipcovers, contrasting welts, collage combinations and even a monogram if a customer wants it.
Moreover, today there are sectionals priced to appeal to every demographic group, from a two-piece beige microfiber sectional at Denver's American Furniture Warehouse for $849 to a $15,000 super-sleek silhouette at Roche-Bobois. In particular, sectionals are popular with Gen Xers and younger Baby Boomers willing to spend more, according to a Furniture/Today consumer study published in 2004.
Home theater a driver
According to that survey, the publication's latest to include the category, those two groups of buyers bought 27% of sectionals sold. Those buyers also were very affluent — 50% had household incomes of $75,000, and a third had incomes of $100,000 and more.
One reason that sectionals are popular is "the home theater craze," said Stefanie Lucas, president of midpriced producer Rowe. "They're versatile and allow people to do different configurations so they're not locked into one look."
She added that Rowe has a dozen sectionals in its line.
DL&S Inc. covered its style bases this market by introducing a curvy, flowing sectional for the design oriented and a more practical boxy number for the comfort conscious.
"We're getting back to the more modern look," said Selig Drezner, president.
