Memo to Upholstery Manufacturers:
I’ve witnessed this from both sides of the desk. Manufacturer’s rep or principle says, “We’ll be glad to make anything you want for you. Just give us a picture or sketch of what you need and we’ll make it.” Obviously, a blatant invitation to copy something that is successful from another manufacturer. Now, I am not a purist. I fully understand that knocking-off product is an integral part of our industry and has been for much longer than the 34 years I’ve been in the business. This is not the part of the scenario to which I object.Sometimes, especially with a larger, dominating retailer, manufacturers are obsessed with demonstrating to, almost fawning over the retailer to express their willingness and desire to do what is necessary to get the job done and to help the retailer.
Here’s the problem I have with that: In many, if not most cases, the retailer already knows this. Believe me, they get it.
The thing is, this is probably not what they want. Instead, what they really want is for you to tell them what you would be willing to make, just for them. They are looking to you for guidance to find the next big winner, not the other way around. However, this may require a little work.
The next time you meet with a major retailer do your homework well before the meeting. Instead of the retailer doing your work for you, you do theirs for them. Spend a day on their showroom floors. Talk to the sales associates to get their input on the stores needs. Ask them to show you their best sellers. Determine the commonalities of the best sellers. Analyze the entire assortment looking for voids and needs. Focus on the price point range and the store’s most important price points. In my set of books, Furniture Retailing 101, I offer an example of a Merchandise Grid that will make this job easy or devise your own.
You may be able to fill in a Merchandise grid from the retailer’s web site (be careful here, as some retailers don’t monitor their sites as well as they should. The information may be out-dated or incomplete). Then, when the research is complete, develop a merchandise presentation complete with pictures, sketches, fabrics, price points, recommendations and all of the reasons from your research that the retailer absolutely must have this merchandise. Make the presentation professional and appealing. Don’t just throw the pictures and fabrics on the desk. Show the merchant your research and the Merchandise Grid of the retailer’s upholstery line-up to PROVE your points.
Be this professional, and you may not make the sale on this visit, but I promise you, the retailer will look at you and your company with an entirely new perspective and respect, and you will make it on the next or the one after that.
Jim Green commented:
To Laura in Burlington:
You certainly hit the nail on the head and I couldn't agree more. Especially, in this economic climate new, fresh, and exciting may generate sales where old and "me too", never could. Your comments illustrate what I was trying to get across, that manufacturers, mills, and designers should be serving up what is new rather than offering rehashes of what may now be the last hot item.
Thanks for writing.
Jim
laura in burlington commented:
In my 20+ yrs of designing both upholstery and mattress fabrics I have been asked to "create something like this" many times. Let me tell you that it is infinitely more difficult to duplicate an existing fabric than to create a new one from scratch! Even when we designers attempt to follow-up our own best-sellers from last season, a "me-too" offering never performs as well as the original. Rather, as professional designers it is our calling to combine our knowledge of market trends, price points, and awareness of customer needs to create new designs that fulfill those needs oftentimes before the customers can verbalize them. They just know what they like when they see it!
Niles Cornelius commented:
Great article Jim. I appreciate the clarity you give to mfrs about preparing before meeting with the retailer.This homework you recommend is sorely lacking out there.
Jim commented:
Dear Nomar:
My point of this article was not to lambast the practice of knocking off product. That issue has been beaten to death from both sides. My view is that, this offer made to retailers is a bit of a cop out when what retailers really want is for manufacturers to bring to them the next hot item, not the other way around.
Thanks for writing.
Jim
CA Furniture MFG commented:
Great article! I have often made the mistake of telling retailers I can make anything. I have found this to be too broad of an answer. They want more specific, they want me to tell them WHAT I can build exclusively for them. Great Insight!
Nomar Highpoint commented:
In my 20 years in the fabric business this has happened hundreds of times. If your manufacturing company won't knock it off then the next guy will for even cheaper. This is the nature of the business, it is called survival. Keep your factory working no matter what the costs. This is the retailers power play, the dangling of the carrot. Do you want the business or not?
