CONCORD, Ontario \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Canadian leather upholstery manufacturer Coja is pulling out of the High Point Market after 20 years and will instead show its product on the road.<\/p>\n
The company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ground floor showroom in High Point\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hamilton Square, HS-111, will be taken over by Laurent Leather, a Hickory, N.C.-based high-end leather producer.
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Coja, a third-generation manufacturer, shifted its Dutch-owned operation to North America in 1986. It will continue to show product in its 2,500-square-foot space at the Toronto show in January.<\/p>\n
Coja Vice President Eric Vlessing \u00e2\u20ac\u201d who manages the company with his brother, President Robert Vlessing \u00e2\u20ac\u201d was quick to dispel any rumors of the company closing. Instead, he chalked up the High Point exit to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the deterioration of the attendance at the show over the last five years, as well as to the changing economic base, the exchange rate, the dealer base, and the Las Vegas phenomenon.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
But Las Vegas is not the main culprit, he said.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think Las Vegas had that much to do with it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Vlessing said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In the last two years specifically, attendance (in High Point) has been down. Where is the return on my investment? That money is better spent somewhere else.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Coja has developed a road show it will roll out in Seattle in late June before heading to Los Angeles, said Mark Parris, vice president of sales and marketing for the United States. A schedule for other U.S. cities is in development.<\/p>\n
Calling High Point \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an unrewarding experience,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Parris said management and sales representatives discussed the idea of leaving the market. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a mutual decision by everybody in the same room,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There are a lot of things you can do on the road. Our money is better spent there.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Parris said the decision was made before High Point\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent move to change its dates back to late April and October. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The date change had no effect.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Coja also is developing retail gallery programs and beefing up its support for sales representatives, he added.<\/p>\n
Vlessing and Parris said they will continue to walk the shows in High Point and Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
Vlessing said he has not shut the door completely on High Point. He will check back in a year to see if anything has changed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CONCORD, Ontario \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Canadian leather upholstery manufacturer Coja is pulling out of the High Point Market after 20 years and will instead show its product on the road. The company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ground floor showroom in High Point\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hamilton Square, HS-111, will be taken over by Laurent Leather, a Hickory, N.C.-based high-end leather producer.<\/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-4068","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\/4068","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=4068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}