Daily News Archive
Brought to you by Home Furnishings Business
July 18,
2006 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in Case Goods on July 2006
Stanley Furniture Co. reported second-quarter 2006 sales of $77.5 million and net income of $3.9 million, respective decreases of 7.4 percent and 32.4 percent, compared to the same prior-year period.
Year to date, sales of $161 million are off 3.4 percent from the first half of 2005; and net income of $9.3 is down 19.5 percent.
“We are disappointed with the decline in sales; however we believe this is a result of overall current industry conditions,” said Jeff Scheffer, chairman, president and chief executive officer. “Quite frankly, we expect this weaker sales environment to persist for a while, and as a result we have lowered our sales and earnings guidance for the balance of the year.”
Scheffer was pleased, however, with strong cash flow and ongoing improvements in manufacturing efficiency.
“These efforts have already resulted in a significant decrease in inventories while improving customer service levels, and we believe we are laying the ground work to further improve processes and efficiencies,” he said.
In the third quarter, Stanley’s management expects sales between $81 million and $83.5 million, a decrease of 2.5 percent to 5.4 percent compared to the prior year.
For 2006, the company anticipates sales between $323.5 million and $331 million, a decrease of 1 percent to 3 percent from 2005 levels.
July 18,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in on July 2006
Chinese upholstery manufacturer Wansheng Sofa Co. has signed on with GE Capital’s Trade Flow Finance service to offer qualified importers of its goods a 60-day interest free financing period. Under this program, Wansheng pays all finance charges for 60 days from the time the goods leave port in China.
“GE’s Trade Flow Finance program provides an incentive for our importers to order a broader range of inventory and comfortably place orders in advance of the prime selling periods,” said Jian Xin Sun, president of Wansheng. “We are a relatively new company to the U.S., and we believe that we can increase our export business by paying the 60-day finance costs for our customers.”
Wansheng produces mid-to-high quality upholstery in its factory at Haining City in the Zhejiang Province of China. The company has more than 2,000 employees and 50 standard production lines with annual capacity in excess of 1 million sofa units. Wansheng exports primarily to Europe and North America in addition to domestic sales in China.
GE developed the Trade Flow Finance program through its Commercial Distribution Finance unit in order to assist importers who want to grow their sales by leveraging longer financing periods.
“Wansheng is an innovative manufacturer of leather and fabric upholstery products who wants to grow its business in the U.S.,” said Gary McGugan, CDF’ s senior vice president of strategic growth. “With the 60-day Trade Flow Finance service term, Wansheng importers can grow sales by allowing adequate time for importers to receive, display and, possibly sell the goods before payment is due.”
Commercial Distribution Finance, a unit of GE Capital Solutions, specializes in financing the movement of finished consumers goods throughout the distribution chain and serves more than 6,000 manufacturers who sell to over 40,000 retailers. CDF is a leading provider of specialized financing products and services for various industries. Offerings include inventory financing, accounts receivable financing, asset based lending, private label financing, collateral management, e-commerce services and related financial products.
July 18,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in High Point on July 2006
Case goods importer Master Design will move its High Point showroom into the entire second floor and lobby space of Hamilton Market, located at 101 N. Hamilton St. As the building’s anchor tenant, Master Design will occupy almost 50,000 square feet of space.
The new showroom will be open in time for the fall International Home Furnishings Market, Oct. 16-22. Master Design Furniture relocated its sales and marketing offices to High Point earlier this month and recently announced plans to build a new distribution center in the community as well.
Merchandise Mart Properties Inc., which manages Hamilton Market, also operates Plaza Suites, site of Master Design’s former showroom.
“The infrastructure of the furniture industry is in High Point–from furniture designers and fabrics to trade publications and logistics partners,” said Chester Lee, president of Master Design Furniture. “We believe there is no better place to make a strong, long-term commitment to the growth and opportunities of the home furnishings industry than right here in North Carolina.”
The new showroom will allow Master Design to display its full line of bedroom, dining room and entertainment furnishings in a single location, said Joe Elmore, executive vice president of sales, marketing and product development for Master Design.
“With our new showroom, offices and new distribution center in the greater High Point community, we are putting a punctuation mark on the importance of High Point,” he said.
Tom Mitchell, senior vice president and general manager for Merchandise Mart Properties also gave credit to Craven Commercial Properties for assisting in securing Master Design’s expanded showroom in Hamilton Market.
July 17,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Las Vegas on July 2006
Every retailer or manufacturer knows both the joys and trials of having a fleet of trucks on the road, constantly on the go. A joy, not the least of which, seeing your company name and logo out on the streets informing the general public of what it is you do.
Graphic installation and TruckSkin® will hold changeout demonstrations at the Las Vegas Furniture Market to show market attendees how easy it is to use existing company vehicles to promote their business. TruckSkin is a vinyl covering that slides into grooves on the sides and back of your van body, changing the van body into a billboard. TruckSkin will install their changeable truck side graphics and adhesive cab wraps at booth 72339 (south hall) of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Members of the TruckSkin team will be providing live demonstrations of their products during the Las Vegas Furniture Market. The live demonstrations will be held July 25th through July 28th in the Las Vegas Convention Center at the TruckSkin booth 72339. Las Vegas Furniture Market attendees will be able to see these demonstrations three times per day at 11:00 am, 2:00 pm & 4:00 pm. “See how easy it is to have your vehicle transformed into a 24 hour a day advertisement,” says TruckSkin Vice President Joe Lapekas
Founded in 1999, TruckSkin LLC has grown to be one of the nation’s leaders in unique vehicle graphics. Specializing in changeable truck side advertising they meet the advertising needs of business vehicle fleets both small and large. Along with changeable TruckSkin® graphics, they provide digitally printed adhesives, full and partial vehicle wraps and cut vinyl graphics, using the latest state of the art printing technology. Utilizing nationwide installers TruckSkins can be seen in all 50 states as well as Japan, Ecuador, Canada, the Cayman Islands and Puerto Rico. TruckSkin LLC is fully dedicated to surpassing their customer’s expectations.
July 16,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in on July 2006
Furnishnet’s June Index shows increased retailer purchases from May but an overall decrease against June 2005.
After a strong rebound in purchases in May 2006 versus April 2006, June showed a slight bump over May’s retailer purchase volume with a gain of 1.06 percent. Year-over-year purchasing trends, however, drifted lower in June with a drop-off in purchases of 4.03 percent, compared with June 2005.
Part of the lower retailer purchase volume can be attributed to an extra day (Wednesday) after Memorial Day this year in May, which gave retailers more time to follow-up with holiday weekend sales activities that month rather than rolling more purchases into June, as was done in 2005. The year-to-date purchase trend dropped to 4.67 percent over 2005, down from 6.81 percent ahead of prior-year purchases at the end of May.
The FurnishNet Index takes a look at furniture purchasing trends throughout the industry by presenting a same-month comparison, as well as a month-to-month percentage change to provide a historical look on purchasing patterns.
FurnishNet is the industry’s leading supplier of electronic transaction exchange service to retailers and manufacturers. Click
http://www.furnishnet.com/company/fnet_index.html for the complete view of the June issue of the FurnishNet Index.