The Final Furniture Frontier
Where are the undiscovered frontiers of source countries for the home furnishings industry?
April 2006 By Powell Slaughter
In the 1890’s, the United States officially closed its frontiers—a few territories remained at the time, but the government considered the country “settled.” A couple of years later, the Alaskan Gold Rush re-fired the country’s imagination for new horizons, bringing thousands of people to the far North, looking for gold and other opportunities.
With China and Latin America already on the map, and countries like Vietnam opening up to supplying furniture bound for U.S. retailers, it’s easy to think the world’s sourcing well for the industry pretty much has been tapped. But while there might not be another furniture “gold rush” on the scale of China in the past decade, there are plenty of places that would like a piece of the vast market for U.S. furniture.
It’s largely a question of who’s willing to invest the time and groundwork to develop the sourcing frontier. With the logistical and relationship issues involved in maintaining a product pipeline stretching half-way around the world, a lot of suppliers are sticking to what they know.
“I can guarantee there are new source countries out there,” said Gil Sturtzel, vice president of purchasing for Davis International. “Our position is we don’t want to be frontiersmen. There’s such a huge learning curve for new sources for the U.S. market. When I started here, most retailers had a problem with our flow, and we have concentrated on dealing with only a few people to correct that.”
With several established source countries, it’s easy for suppliers to stay in the Far East.
“Part of the problem with diversifying your sourcing is managing the opportunity versus the cost,” said Nathan Cressman, vice president of operations and merchandising for Magnussen Home Furnishings. “It’s very easy to move around Asia. If you’re in Malaysia, you’re only a couple of hours by air from China.”
While a lot of vendors might be standing pat for now, there’s no question the frontiers remain open as far as countries of origin go for the U.S. market.
Ask furniture-sourcing veterans about the next rising stars, and their responses have one country in common—India. That includes officials with companies that declined to go on the record for this story—seems a lot of folks don’t want to show their sourcing cards too soon.
To date, the U.S. market is seeing mostly accent furniture from India, but some home-grown companies like Indus Valley have made case goods forays into High Point, and sourcing pioneer Paul Maitland-Smith built a plant in northern India that’s still doing OEM work before moving his Theodore Alexander operation to Vietnam a few years ago. Schnadig also has sourced full collections out of a large plant in the New Delhi area, the center of most manufacturing.
With China and Latin America already on the map, and countries like Vietnam opening up to supplying furniture bound for U.S. retailers, it’s easy to think the world’s sourcing well for the industry pretty much has been tapped. But while there might not be another furniture “gold rush” on the scale of China in the past decade, there are plenty of places that would like a piece of the vast market for U.S. furniture.
It’s largely a question of who’s willing to invest the time and groundwork to develop the sourcing frontier. With the logistical and relationship issues involved in maintaining a product pipeline stretching half-way around the world, a lot of suppliers are sticking to what they know.
“I can guarantee there are new source countries out there,” said Gil Sturtzel, vice president of purchasing for Davis International. “Our position is we don’t want to be frontiersmen. There’s such a huge learning curve for new sources for the U.S. market. When I started here, most retailers had a problem with our flow, and we have concentrated on dealing with only a few people to correct that.”
With several established source countries, it’s easy for suppliers to stay in the Far East.
“Part of the problem with diversifying your sourcing is managing the opportunity versus the cost,” said Nathan Cressman, vice president of operations and merchandising for Magnussen Home Furnishings. “It’s very easy to move around Asia. If you’re in Malaysia, you’re only a couple of hours by air from China.”
While a lot of vendors might be standing pat for now, there’s no question the frontiers remain open as far as countries of origin go for the U.S. market.
Ask furniture-sourcing veterans about the next rising stars, and their responses have one country in common—India. That includes officials with companies that declined to go on the record for this story—seems a lot of folks don’t want to show their sourcing cards too soon.
To date, the U.S. market is seeing mostly accent furniture from India, but some home-grown companies like Indus Valley have made case goods forays into High Point, and sourcing pioneer Paul Maitland-Smith built a plant in northern India that’s still doing OEM work before moving his Theodore Alexander operation to Vietnam a few years ago. Schnadig also has sourced full collections out of a large plant in the New Delhi area, the center of most manufacturing.
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