Larry Thomas — Furniture Today
Dealer traffic modest but steady

TUPELO, Miss. — Order pads and fax machines are in heavy use here this week as this city’s furniture market is solidifying its reputation as an order-writing event for promotional and mid-priced goods.

Many exhibitors said traffic doesn’t appear to be as heavy as at a typical Tupelo winter market, but said the new Wednesday-through-Saturday schedule and the proximity to last month’s Las Vegas market may have altered traffic patterns.

The only period in which many showrooms were slammed with dealers was Wednesday afternoon — the second half of opening day. Otherwise, traffic appeared to be modest but steady.

Order writing, however, has been anything but modest. Producers said dealers were anxious to get their hands on promotional merchandise for tax-refund season.

“We wrote some very good orders with both the majors and some smaller dealers,” said Tim Connors, vice president of sales and marketing at Collezione Europa. “The order-writing was way up over last August.”

Thomas “Chopper” Russo, vice president of merchandising at Union City, was enthusiastic.

“We wrote more business during the first day of the Tupelo market than we did during the first day of the Vegas market,” he said.

While numerous Top 100 retailers and representatives of major buying groups roamed the halls, exhibitors said most shoppers were small and mid-sized dealers from the Southeast, the Tupelo market’s traditional base.

“We saw a lot of dealers from states like Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana,” said Michael Campbell, president of leather upholstery importer Leather Italia USA. “And we don’t see those people in High Point or Las Vegas.”

Louisiana-based Fraenkel Corp. reported similar traffic patterns, noting that replacement furniture for homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina is starting to drive sales in some areas.

“Our business has been super,” said Jim Burress, Fraenkel’s vice president of merchandising. “Ninety percent of the people who came into our showroom placed orders.”

For the second consecutive show, market organizers encouraged exhibitors to develop a program of  “Tupelo only” specials for dealers who placed orders, and the program appears to have met with success.

“It makes the buyers feel like there is a real reason to shop here,” said Lynn Davis, president of Davis International.