{"id":5884,"date":"2016-12-28T09:17:24","date_gmt":"2016-12-28T09:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/javafurniture.com\/news\/?p=5879"},"modified":"2016-12-28T09:17:24","modified_gmt":"2016-12-28T09:17:24","slug":"furnitures-economic-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/furnitures-economic-tool\/","title":{"rendered":"Furniture\u2019s economic tool"},"content":{"rendered":"

LaGrange-area woodworkers put effort into Shipshewana showroom<\/h2>\n

Marty Schladen<\/h5>\n
The Journal Gazette<\/h6>\n
\n

LAGRANGE \u2013 In the past year, the LaGrange County economy has seen more downs than ups. But a wholesale furniture showroom in the works for Shipshewana represents a bright spot that economic developers hope to capitalize on.<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

After years of growing participation, the Northern Indiana Woodcrafter\u2019s Association will open the showroom at 960 S. Van Buren St. next month. The association, a group of 80 Amish-owned businesses, has previously shown its wares to furniture retailers at its annual furniture expo in Shipshewana.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to take it to the next level,\u201d said Henry Yoder, a member of the association.<\/p>\n

Yoder stood in the 10,000-square-foot building, formerly a hunting supply store, which he and other members of his group are renovating. He said association members have been coming in during their spare time to do the work, so it\u2019s hard to put a price tag on its cost.<\/p>\n

Furniture makers, including R.H. Yoder Woodworking, the company Yoder and his brother, Richard, own, will start moving products in early next month, Yoder said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have well over $100,000 worth of furniture in here once we\u2019ve moved in,\u201d Yoder said.<\/p>\n

LaGrange, Elkhart and a sliver of Noble counties are home to the third-largest Amish settlement in the United States. They\u2019re also a center of the U.S. RV industry.<\/p>\n

So in 2015, when gas prices rose, the economy tanked and credit slowed, thousands were thrown out of jobs \u2013 including many Amish. In all three counties, unemployment rates this year eclipsed 17 percent.<\/p>\n

At the time, economic developers, Amish community leaders and others said the dislocation would prompt unemployed factory workers to go into small businesses such as furniture making.<\/p>\n

Yoder, 25, said that one of his six employees had worked in an RV factory and seems to like his new job better. But he said the number of LaGrange County furniture makers \u2013 and the membership in the association \u2013 has grown steadily over the past decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, this is something that started before the economy turned,\u201d Keith Gillenwater said of the idea to open a wholesale furniture showroom. Gillenwater is executive director of the LaGrange County Economic Development Corp.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to find numbers to measure employment and revenue generated by the LaGrange County woodworking industry.<\/p>\n

But Gillenwater said it\u2019s growing, and he wants to form an industry cluster group in the coming year to gather data and plan strategy.<\/p>\n

Similar cluster groups have been formed for the Allen County defense industry and the Kosciusko County orthopedic device industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose industries would be great to have here, but they\u2019re not the strengths we have now,\u201d Gillenwater said.<\/p>\n

American-made \u2013 and Amish-made \u2013 furniture costs more than the cheapest imports, and sales of it can suffer in a bad economy, said Ron Habegger, co-owner of Habegger Furniture. The Berne furniture store has a showroom in Fort Wayne.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly in the recession, most people were shopping just on a price basis,\u201d Habegger said, adding that higher-priced pieces have started moving again.<\/p>\n

Habegger buys its upholstered goods from Smith Brothers of Berne Inc. But about half of its non-upholstered goods are bought directly from Amish furniture makers in eastern Ohio.<\/p>\n

Habegger said, however, that he\u2019s interested in checking out the wares at the Shipshewana showroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is definitely room in the market for quality furniture,\u201d Habegger said.<\/p>\n

The shop will be open to retailers like Habegger but not the public. Buyers still will buy directly from the furniture makers, but the showroom will allow Yoder\u2019s company to exhibit its dining-room chairs alongside another woodcrafter\u2019s tables and so on.<\/p>\n

In terms of amounts and styles, U.S. retailers can order furniture with much more flexibility than if they buy from overseas, Yoder said.<\/p>\n

The association is in the process of hiring someone to handle marketing for the showroom and other tasks that the woodcrafters aren\u2019t comfortable with.<\/p>\n

And, despite their reputation for making quality goods, Amish furniture makers aren\u2019t comfortable calling their products \u201cAmish furniture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t intend to exploit our name,\u201d Yoder said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have people selling \u2018Catholic furniture.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

The woodcrafters have a more practical reason to avoid throwing their name around. They don\u2019t want buyers to assume that all they make are a few pieces in oak and maple.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can make just about anything,\u201d Yoder said.<\/p>\n

mschladen@jg.net<\/a><\/p>\n

Source : www.journalgazette.net<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LaGrange-area woodworkers put effort into Shipshewana showroom Marty Schladen The Journal Gazette LAGRANGE \u2013 In the past year, the LaGrange County economy has seen more downs than ups. But a wholesale furniture showroom in the works for Shipshewana represents a bright spot that economic developers hope to capitalize on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furniture-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884","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=5884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}