While having dinner with a good friend and Greensboro resident during last week’s High Point Market, naturally the conversation turned to HB2 and its effect on attendance. Manufacturers whose showrooms are always bustling (Global Views, Visual Comfort, Currey & Co., Wildwood, Regina-Andrew, Four Hands, to name a few) were still full of activity from interior designers; however, other areas were decidedly less populated. There were also a few last-minute cancellations in the temporary spaces due to the passing of HB2.
My dinner companion was worried, and provided good reason. I told her about several manufacturers who are considering terminating, or not renewing, their showroom leases. She, also, had heard the talk among those who came to High Point as to whether there would be a mass migration to the Las Vegas Market. We wondered whether the remaining North Carolina-based factories still making upholstery and furniture in the state would soon be punished by a withdrawal of business. “I don’t want to see High Point become the next Detroit,” she stated. It’s a fair point.
Interior designers were easily the majority of the attendees that I saw at Market, followed by independent boutique owners and style bloggers. The halls and streets seemed to be lacking in corporate buyers from national and regional chains.
“If a good portion of the major buyers didn’t come, how will the end consumer be able to purchase the new products that were introduced,” my friend asked, adding, “Let’s say they see some really cool items from Market in a consumer magazine or on a blogger’s site. If the buyers for stores in their area did not come to High Point and purchase/see those items, what good is a consumer seeing – and wanting – something they cannot easily buy? And can the exhibiting manufacturers still be profitable if they have a big drop in sizable Market orders?”
When I asked manufacturers and reps how likely it would be that the HB2 storm would subside to a dull roar by October Market, no one hesitated to say the situation would be far worse. Many pointed to companies that are strongly opposed to the law’s passing, but didn’t have time to officially react by the time April market started. Now, in the months leading up to the Fall Market, there would be time to form a corporate response and decision.
If there is no policy change on the state level, attendance among exhibitors and attendees is expected to drop even further come October. The passing of HB2 is a new obstacle that the industry must now combat — which is a shame, because the Spring High Point Market was filled with beautiful new products in every category of home furnishings.
These big semi-annual trade shows are really a thing of the past anyway, There are many, mostly smaller, manufacturers who have pulled out of High Point over the past few years.
Now the bigger companies have an excuse for terminating their longer term leases. From the manufacturer’s side it is by far less expensive to put up an attractive web site, adver- tise on popular home decorating blogs, and then send hundreds of free samples each year to interested dealers than it is to maintain a showroom at any of these big dog and pony shows. The essential problem with most of the furniture industry is that is firmly stuck in the past: making outdated products and peddling them in outdated ways. There are two very basic business concepts the people who run the furniture companies have lost track of: 1. you can never out-earn mismanagement, 2. you cannot move forward with backward thinking.