City Show Forbidden Has Long Coat Tails

January 16, 2007  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in High Point on January 2007 Bring an estimated 500-plus furniture buyers from 400 accounts, many of those Top 100 dealers, give them three days to look around, and you can bet some other vendors want a piece of that action.

That was the case with the second edition of the Forbidden City Furniture Show, which concludes today in High Point. William Hsieh, the head of Lifestyle Enterprise, has made High Point a place to be in mid-January, not only for comped retailers, but also for other suppliers, more than 60, who opened their showroom doors this week.

One exhibitor who didn’t get on a pre-printed list of open showrooms even taped a card inside elevators in the International Home Furnishings Center.

JT Michael, which was on the list, expected to see eight to 10 existing or potential customers during the show, often known in the industry as “mini-market.”

“It basically costs us nothing to be here,” said Todd Robinson, a partner in the design/source case goods company. “We had people who wanted to see our product direction, and with the number of showrooms that are open this week, the fact that we’ve had these visits reinforces that we’re on the right track.”

Legacy Classic expected to see between 15 and 20 dealers at the Forbidden City show.

“Any time you have and opportunity to see important customers and spend time with them, you need to take advantage,” said Mike Harris, vice president of sales. “For us, it’s been in some ways a ‘premarket’ to Vegas. We saw a potential account from California who’s never seen our product line, and we’ll be following up with them in Las Vegas in a more intensive way.”

The Forbidden City event could end up being Vaughan-Bassett’s premarket for the Spring High Point show.

“At minimarket a year ago, we saw 57 dealers, which is more than the last two premarkets, combined,” said Vice President of Sales Doug Bassett. “We’re going to be a long way down the road by March 1 on what we want to bring out for market.”

High-end vendor Bernhardt was perhaps the strangest bedfellow at this week’s High Point event. Executive Vice President Rountree Collett said the company would have opened the showroom for last year’s minimarket had it had enough notice. Bernhardt had a near-complete collection in pine, its first to use that wood in many years, at its showroom this week.

“We saw a preliminary attendee list for this week that looked pretty good,” Collett said. “There’s not much customer overlap with Lifestyle, but some, and we had some key customers in to take a look at what we’re doing for spring. On product that’s not complete, there’s the opportunity now to get meaningful dialogue with dealers and actually have time to make some changes. ... We can also get a jump on distribution.”

John Wampler, president of Lifestyle’s Forbidden City and Lifestyle divisions, said that support for the show continues to build among others in High Point. He had particular praise for Merchandise Mart Properties Inc., which provided vans for transportation to and from the local airport, and between Lifestyle’s two showrooms. MMPI also produced a brochure identifying other showrooms that opened for the event.

“There were a lot of showrooms that aren’t among their properties,” Wampler said of MMPI. “They’re expansive in their view of what’s going on in High Point, and we appreciate their support, led by Tom Mitchell.”