New Dongguan furniture complex adds to mix of showrooms around the globe

The first thing readers might ask when seeing the news about another huge furniture showroom complex planned in Dongguan is: Do we need really need another major furniture show?

Some in the industry already appear to be weary of attending four major shows - two in High Point and two in Las Vegas - in the United States each year. Add two more if you attend Tupelo and another two beyond that if you include the March and September premarkets in High Point.

This doesn't include the long list of international shows, many of which you can see on Furniture/Today's events calendar http://www.furnituretoday.com/event/. These take place in places as far reaching as China and Vietnam, not to mention Toronto, Cologne, Paris, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Guadalajara, etc....

So back to the International Famous Furniture Procurement Center in Dongguan, which could total about 10 million square feet by 2018. Some of this will be for offices and support services such as design and logistics. But much of it will be for permanent showrooms, which would be in addition to the 2.6 million square feet of temporary space at an adjoining home furnishings trade show held next to the construction site. The showrooms will be open to the trade during the shows and will be open to the public as retail space at other times during the year.

Does anyone really want to look at that much furniture? The short answer is probably yes, especially when you consider that there are hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers, many of whom are just starting to be in the market for the kind of furniture seen at these types of venues.

Add to this the market outside China - including the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Australia - and you still have considerable appetite for the variety of product that's out there.

A reader called recently to ask me which shows were the best for the type of furniture he was sourcing. I get asked this question often and it's sometimes hard to answer because you don't want to steer someone down the wrong path.

But the short answer is that thanks to the variety of product, each show offers an aspect of discovery that makes it worthwhile to attend at some point in time. Then, based on that first impression, you can determine which makes sense to attend on a regular basis.

I would guess the same would also be true of the new complex in Dongguan. It's definitely going to be worth seeing as it develops. Just be prepared to do a lot of walking and to see a lot of furniture.