Forbidden City rocks
By Jeff Linville -- Furniture Today, January 20, 2008
High Point — The Forbidden City Furniture Show continues to grow in its third year, according to organizer Lifestyle Enterprise.
"We still don't have our total summary in, but really, the January show was a tremendous success," said Rick Bowman, president of case goods for the Lifestyle and Forbidden City lines.
"Our attendance was up, and our business was unbelievable in this retail environment."
Lifestyle arranged travel and lodging for more than 580 people to visit High Point and tour the importer's Commerce Avenue showroom. But the total number at last week's event swelled to much more, with a number of retailers driving in.
"All of our major accounts attended," said Bowman. "We are very pleased, also, on the number of new customers and our warehouse program's success."
A big boost to traffic came from midsized and smaller dealers taking advantage of a Lifestyle's new domestic warehouse program, instead of buying direct containers. The case goods and leather upholstery importer will distribute some of its top-selling bedroom and dining groups from the MGM Transport facility in Eden, N.C.
Lifestyle Managing Director James Riddle said that the show's aim was to help spur excitement in a slow time for the industry. "Everybody wants to come up with the silver bullet, and we have the silver bullet," he said.
On the first night of the show, the importer held a drawing and gave away a BMW Z4 3.0i to Paul Burt of retailer MD Pruitt's in Phoenix. On the second night, Linda Brusso, Haynes Furniture, Virginia Beach, Va., won another sports car, a Mercedes Benz SLK 280.
Burt said he spent 25 years as a sales representative for Broyhill before joining the family-owned MD Pruitt's, so he understands the manufacturing side and appreciates what Lifestyle does.
He said that in the 110,000-square-foot Phoenix store, purchases from Lifestyle over the past few years have quadrupled from $800,000 to $3.8 million — propelling the importer ahead of Ashley as the store's top supplier. Margins with Lifestyle's goods are about 8% higher than with the store's other products, he added.
While the Forbidden City event offered several incentives for retailers to buy, Riddle said that deals only get stores to try the furnishings once. What keeps them coming back, he said, is seeing the results on the sales floor.
