Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
Fusion Designs Heads to Las Vegas with Essentials Plus Dining
July 23,
2023 by HFBusiness Staff in Business Strategy, Industry 
Fusion Designs, a producer of solid wood, domestic case goods, is heading to the Las Vegas Market to highlight its new Essentials Plus dining program to dealers west of the Mississippi.
The manufacturer is also going to show new panels of American hardwood species that signal key color and finish directions in major product introductions to come later in the year.
“We see the slower summer market this year as the ideal time to fine-tune our product development plans for the rebound we expect this Fall, spending quality time with key retailers to gain valuable feedback about where we think the market is heading in terms of trends,” said Marcus Bontrager, president of Fusion Designs.
“Given the ebbs and flows at retail now, we believe this kind of collaboration is more vital than ever. The retailers who are taking the time to come to Market are looking for answers and so are we.”
According to Bontrager, while sales promotions are definitely working again this summer, dealers have been seeing smaller orders, more often than not involving custom options.
“The people who have money to buy aren’t willing to settle for off-the-shelf or standard options,” he said, “and given our custom capabilities and finish programs, we think we’re ideally positioned to continue to help dealers satisfy shoppers.”
The executive continued, “This doesn’t mean we are sitting still. We’re full steam ahead in terms of product development and finding ways we can improve on our processes and programs—anything we can do to make it easier for retailers to drive business.”
Indeed, prior to the pandemic, Fusion Designs would typically introduce two or three dining collections a year at most. This year, with the expansion of its popular Essentials Collection, and the introduction of Essentials Plus—collections of solid wood furnishings available in 35 finishes that can be shipped to retailers in 10 days—the company has already brought eight new dining collections to market.
“We’ve got another 10 collections in development stages, and we will be bringing out new collections all the way through the end of the year, so our goal now is to gather insights from the dealers in terms of colors and style trends, and make sure they think we’re on the right track.”
With this in mind Bontrager will be sharing three finish panels of domestic hardwoods in Las Vegas. All variations on a lighter, more natural theme. One, Chalk, suitable for modern cottage styles, is a white hang-up with a green tint.
Another, Sand, offers a gray hang-up that is almost natural with a tint of gray, and the third, Boardwalk, described as “natural light,” features a toner that evens out the natural color of the wood.
“The look,” Bontrager said, is ideal for the softened modern Scandinavian styles we see becoming more important now. We’re looking forward to hearing what retailers think about these new fresher colors and the new wood species we think represent the new color trends very well.”