Larry Thomas — Furniture Today
\nDealer traffic modest but steady<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
TUPELO, Miss. \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Order pads and fax machines are in heavy use here this week as this city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s furniture market is solidifying its reputation as an order-writing event for promotional and mid-priced goods.<\/p>\n
Many exhibitors said traffic doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Las Vegas market may have altered traffic patterns.<\/p>\n
The only period in which many showrooms were slammed with dealers was Wednesday afternoon \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the second half of opening day. Otherwise, traffic appeared to be modest but steady.<\/p>\n
Order writing, however, has been anything but modest. Producers said dealers were anxious to get their hands on promotional merchandise for tax-refund season.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We wrote some very good orders with both the majors and some smaller dealers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Tim Connors, vice president of sales and marketing at Collezione Europa. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The order-writing was way up over last August.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Thomas \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chopper\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Russo, vice president of merchandising at Union City, was enthusiastic.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We wrote more business during the first day of the Tupelo market than we did during the first day of the Vegas market,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s traditional base.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We saw a lot of dealers from states like Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Michael Campbell, president of leather upholstery importer Leather Italia USA. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see those people in High Point or Las Vegas.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our business has been super,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Jim Burress, Fraenkel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vice president of merchandising. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ninety percent of the people who came into our showroom placed orders.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
For the second consecutive show, market organizers encouraged exhibitors to develop a program of\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tupelo only\u00e2\u20ac\u009d specials for dealers who placed orders, and the program appears to have met with success.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It makes the buyers feel like there is a real reason to shop here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Lynn Davis, president of Davis International.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Larry Thomas — Furniture Today Dealer traffic modest but steady TUPELO, Miss. \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Order pads and fax machines are in heavy use here this week as this city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s furniture market is solidifying its reputation as an order-writing event for promotional and mid-priced goods. Many exhibitors said traffic doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t appear to be as heavy as at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furniture-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}