Wisconsin-based firm has 293 stores
By RICK ROMELL
Ashley Furniture Industries Inc., the country’s
largest furniture manufacturer, has become the biggest leaseholder at a Las Vegas furniture market that is viewed as a growing rival to longstanding industry center High Point, N.C.
Advertisement
Buy a link here
Ashley, based in the small city of Arcadia in western Wisconsin, just opened an 85,000-square-foot showroom at the World Market Center.
The showroom, about the size of a Kohl’s department store, takes the entire 15th floor of the World Market Center’s newest building.
The 2-year-old center is a venue for furniture industry trade shows.
As in High Point, where Ashley also maintains a showroom, manufacturers and other companies lease permanent space for semi-annual shows.
The semi-annual International Home Furnishings Market in High Point is the world’s largest trade show of its type, regularly drawing more than 80,000 buyers and other industry participants. They look over furnishings displayed in some 12 million square feet of showroom space in High Point and nearby Thomasville.
The Las Vegas market now has 2.9 million square feet of permanent space but has said it plans to expand to 12 million square feet by 2013. The market doesn’t release attendance numbers.
Furniture Today, a leading industry trade magazine, ranks Ashley as the country’s No. 1 manufacturer, with $2.6 billion in domestic shipments in 2012.
The firm has grown rapidly: Over the seven years from 1998 to 2012, its sales quadrupled.
Some of that growth has come as the company established a chain of branded retail outlets. The firm’s Web site now lists 293 Ashley Furniture HomeStores across the country, compared with just four in 1998.
Some items imported
Guided by Chairman Ron Wanek, Ashley also has been an industry leader in locating production in low-wage countries.
In an interview in late 2003, Wanek said about 40% of Ashley’s volume was imported, with about half of that, by value, coming from China.
But Ashley also has grown here, and is one of western Wisconsin’s largest employers.
