Welcome to Las Vegas Market, the final event in the summer furniture market season. And as always, there will be plenty of talk about traffic after each of this season’s event. Was it busy? How was buyer attendance? Was it busier than January? What were orders like?
All of which misses the point.
Business is soft. No doubt about it. But the real issue isn’t how many attended Market A, B or C, but rather what did they find when they got there? The recovery, when it comes, will be supported by changing market conditions, but it will be driven by product — great product.
Changing market conditions create the environment for success. Great product brings it to fruition. This isn’t to say that there is a shortage of new products. Following a brief period in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic lockdown when capacity and freight issues blunted new product development, the past several markets have seen robust new entries.
If you’re a regular reader of Furniture Today, you’ve no doubt seen the phrases, “largest ever” slate of introductions or “biggest introductions in years,” pop up regularly over the past few markets. Unfortunately, this heightened product development activity has come in an environment defined either by excess retail inventory, soft retail demand or both.
The sad thing about that is that under other market conditions many of these products might have been hits, the kind that drive business for years. The other sad thing is that the space for these potential winners is, in many cases, blocked by a glut of goods that are older and purchased at a higher cost.
It begs the question, to what extent is the lack of sales activity a function of market conditions —higher interest rates, slow household formation, altered discretionary spending habits — and to what extent is it the result of consumers finding themselves unenthused by products that don’t align with the fashion trends they’re finding on their Tik Tok or Instagram feeds.
The answer to this question is not binary. It’s not that if everything was new business would be great and because it’s not everyone’s business is off. The more realistic answer is that in a challenging market every sale counts and every percentage point matters. Two or three extra percentage points of sales could make the difference between profitability or loss.
For retailers attending the market this week, or more importantly those who skipped, it’s worth asking the question, “How exciting is your sales floor?” The key to that answer is taking a hard look through the eyes of your customer, not through the eyes of someone who bought goods and now is determined to hold tight to them until they can be sold for more than their original cost.
There has never been a more important time to take a hard, unvarnished, unemotional look at the sales floor and to ask tough questions about what can really excite potential furniture shoppers. And when that’s done, don’t waste a minute getting to a market to find the things that will help build that excitement.
That could be the first step to recovery.