What are retailers looking for when they shop at a furniture trade show?
That’s a magic question that could make every manufacturer rich, but unfortunately, there’s not one universal answer.
Casual News Now reached out to a few retailers to get a look inside their market shopping strategies and find out how other retailers can prepare for the upcoming Casual Market Atlanta.
Lee Recchia, president of American Casual Living in Suwanee, Georgia, says that to be a good buyer, a retailer first requires great market awareness and knowledge of their customer. His wife, Maureen, is the principal buyer/designer at the company and leads the planning and buying efforts.
“Throughout the year, Maureen spends most days in our store where she speaks with customers, assesses their feedback and acquires instructive market insights,” Recchia says. “From this base, Maureen conducts a review of our current product mix with our sales and operations personnel — what’s working, what fell short of expectations, colors, styles, configurations, price points, supplier performance, individual product challenges, shipping and storage issues, etc. Armed with this information, Maureen, our daughter Lauren and I create a desired wish list to guide us at market.”
While they make appointments with sales reps at established suppliers on the permanent floors, when it comes to temporaries, Lee says they try to carve out time for discovery.
“Some of our better performers over time were products identified in the temporaries,” he says.
When it comes to what makes a brand stand out, Recchia says his team looks to “balance the art with the science.”
“We ask: Is it a quality product (style, construction, comfort, etc.?” he explains. “Does it fit our desired product mix? What will it replace in our existing product mix? Will it appeal to the customer in our market? Where does it fit in terms of price point? Can it be profitable at that price point? What do we know about the supplier?”
Kristine Shultz, president of Patios Plus in Rancho Mirage, California, says her team also carves out time for the temporaries and that they’ve had success with lines found there in the past.
“The temporary floor should be really important this year because they’ve gotten a lot of new and interesting companies showing their products, so I think we’ll devote a good afternoon if not three-quarters of a day to that,” Schultz says.
She adds that the AmericasMart is easy to navigate and encourages people to visit the temporary exhibitors.
Eli Hymer, buyer for Gasper Home & Garden Showplace in Richboro, Pennsylvania, says he looks for products that are not everywhere in his surrounding market.
“I try to find things that are more exclusive and don’t have much representation,” Hymer explains. “I like companies that I can get in on the ground level with and basically grow with them.”
However, he says everything he used to do as far as market goes has changed because of Covid, and he may not make as many transactions at the market as he would in a “normal” year.
The reason is, as with many other retailers, Hymer says Gasper is backed up with inventory and looking to sell off what it has before it can buy more. That means if he doesn’t sell off enough by the time of Casual Market, he may hold off on buying until later in the year.
“I’m going to market with quite a bit of inventory, and having the market in July sort of throws people off in the Northeast because I’m still in the height of the season,” Hymer says. “I don’t know what I need yet and I’m going to delay my orders until September or October when I will have a much better eye for exactly what I have and what I need. This will be like a new market for me because I have to operate in a different way than what I’m accustomed to.”
Hymer is trying to sell out of his stock with a sale for July Fourth, but he also says business in the Northeast has slowed down a bit.
“I quite honestly have enough inventory right now to start off next season again — but I can’t do that because I don’t want a customer coming into the store and saying I sold it last year. I hate that.”
He says he will continue to order containers but adds that he wants to go back to the “old days” when he only had to purchase a floor set or a few to sell rather than 30 sets to sell just to make sure he has enough.
Special orders, however, are where the money is, and they’re causing a problem in the industry right now.
“What makes you special is the fact that you’re able to order something for a customer in a specific fabric frame, doing contrasting welts, fringe and all of these different things that make you much more outdoor couture,” he says. “I want customers to know when they walk throughout the store that they can change anything they want on any of these sets. Around 75% of our business was special orders but then when Covid happened, I think every retailer in the world probably just kept buying product. And we still have the excess inventory from that buying.”
He predicts that it will be a couple of years before everything levels out in the industry and therefore says he’s going to navigate the Casual Market very cautiously and look for things that he “can’t live without.”
While Hymer says he may delay his purchases, Schultz says she has to get all of her orders in by the end of July because the season in the Rancho Mirage area starts in late October.
She still has inventory left to sell and says she will actively shop and look for new products at market. However, she adds that she never actually places orders at market.
“My team likes to take time to think about everything after market is over before we make any final decisions,” she explains. “We’ll be buying, but not as much as we would during a regular year.”
