Clint Engel — Furniture Today
Will focus on High Point

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — City Furniture, which sent 200 people to Las Vegas during the inaugural Las Vegas Market in July, will skip the second one for the most part.

The company says it is aiming to limit its buying trips and focus on High Point.

Keith Koenig, president of the 21-store Top 100 company based here, said he will attend this month’s Las Vegas market for one day because it coincides with another business trip he’s making in the area. But City’s merchandising team is staying home.

“As much as we would like to, there’s not enough time for us to shop all the markets,” he said. “If you really think about it, two High Point markets, two Las Vegas markets, then Tupelo and Atlanta for area rugs and accessories, would require our merchandising team to be out of the office more than eight weeks of the year.”

Trips to visit suppliers — especially those in Asia — complicate the buying process even more, Koenig said.

“We’re going to focus our buying effort at the High Point market,” he said. He did note that the retailer owns an upholstery factory in Tupelo, Miss., that its buyers visit regularly, and “I’ll bet they’ll coincide their visits with the Tupelo market.”

Koenig said City also will skip the mini-market in High Point next week. That event, Jan. 16-18, was initiated by Lifestyle Enterprise, which is forgoing Las Vegas and flying in a number of retailers to High Point. Since the show was announced, more than 55 other High Point exhibitors have said they’ll open their showrooms for the visitors, too.

In July, City was the best-represented retailer in Las Vegas. It brought 100 employees and their spouses or significant others to the city for a trip that was part work and part thank-you to the people driving City’s success.

“We enjoyed our visit to Las Vegas,” Koenig said. “We just don’t have enough time to shop and shop and shop and shop. At some point, you have to put your lineup together and run with it.”

Even though City will be missing, a spokesman for the World Market Center in Las Vegas said this wouldn’t be a trend.

“We expect another very strong market as our pre-registrations for January are on track with our expectations for July,” said Dana Pretner, WMC director of marketing and public relations.

Pre-registration is showing that, just like the first market, 30% of attendees are coming from the East Coast. “What’s more is that so far, over 60% of the Top 200 buyers have registered to come in January as well as many new registrants that were not here for the last show,” Pretner said.

As the market continues to grow it will draw “even more leading buyers and exhibitors from around the world,” she said.