Zepol offers interesting furniture industry trade data
Anyone who has been reading Furniture/Today on a regular basis may have come across the name Zepol Corp. This Minneapolis-based trade intelligence firm provides information to a number of trade publications detailing import and shipment information on a monthly basis. While the information is interesting and gives an idea of what is happening in the area of global trade, it wasn't very specific to indoor residential furniture.
That was until Furniture/Today asked for some more specifics relating to the industry. Zepol and its marketing coordinator, Chelsea Craven, have been very gracious in looking to accommodate our needs. Recently they provided us an analysis on some interesting details such as where the bulk of furniture arrives when it comes into the country and where it leaves from for export.
For the first six months of 2011, the majority of imported product - nearly $2 billion worth of items ranging from seating to case goods - came into, you guessed it, the port of Los Angeles. Surprisingly, this was followed by New York at $852.6 million and Seattle at $504.3 million. Further down the list were Savannah, Ga., Norfolk, Va., San Francisco, Duluth, Minn., Miami, Baltimore and Detroit, at $121.1 million.
On the export side, this was reversed and the most important port was Detroit with $182 million in product shipped, followed by Buffalo, N.Y., at $111.4 million, Seattle with $71.3 million and New York with $69.6 million. Further down the list of export ports in order of importance were Los Angeles, Norfolk, Va., Ogdensburg, N.Y., Miami, Laredo, Texas, and Charleston, S.C.
Additional research by Zepol showed that wooden bedroom and related case goods remained the largest product categories imported, followed by wood framed upholstery, other wood framed seating and wooden dining tables.
The information is small compared to the volume of import and export data compiled by Furniture/Today every six months around High Point Market time. However, we also view it as another useful resource of information that we look forward to sharing with our readers in the future.
A word of thanks to the folks at Zepol for compiling this industry specific data. We look forward to the chance to access your extensive research in the future.
Burt commented:
I disagree. This does not bohetr people because it harkens back to feudalism. It bohetrs people because it seems unfair. It's not fair to call a jet a company expense when it is not a company expense. Poor people who have to budget their starbucks coffees get miffed when they hear about rich people charging stuff like this to the corporate expense accounts.The great and terrible thing about being human is that your brain has all this intuitive reasoning and logic for navigating the world. It works most of the time but also fails a lot of the time. Even though 12m is more than 11m, and it is more than 11m + company jet 12m in pay seems FAIRLY EARNED thus no one complains. Fair is fair, this is what you earned, enjoy it.On the other hand, 11m + company jet seems like cheating, and humans are hard wired programmed to hate social cheaters. Especially social cheaters who are already in a privileged station in society those are the kinds of social cheaters we love to string up and burn to death.It's very easy to see how that seemingly deceptive profiting bohetrs people more than simply increasing take home salary. If I tip a really great waiter $40, he earned it and I am glad to do it. If a waiter forges my tip to change from $15 into $20, I am enraged because this is stealing and it is not fair (even though absolute payment is less).It's really all an illusion though because there is nothing fair about CEO salaries, they are all crooks whether or not they are getting a company jet or if they simply buy the jet and pay for it themselves. Our brains have not evolved to intuitively reason these astronomical sums of money in a modern post agricultural society. So it fails spectacularly , we feel very cheated when we hear of CEOs who make 11 + corporate plane (not fair!) but it's cool if they make 11m sans plane.
Lolly commented:
I thought finding this would be so aurouds but it's a breeze!
