Like Jerry Says, Here’s Some Stuff You Ought To Know

It’s been a while since our last visit. The March Orlando show, which held much promise, was slow by most accounts. We’ll do it again in Las Vegas next year in early April. Expectations are high.

One highlight of the Orlando show, that bears mentioning, was the keynote address by furniture industry statistician and consultant extraordinaire, W. W. ‘Jerry’ Epperson. Epperson’s message, titled “Stuff You Ought To Know,” focused on his deep knowledge and understanding of consumer demographics and shopping trends, past, present and future. His conclusions were as follows: 1. Things are good. 2. Things will continue to get better. 3. There will be a big shakeout in housing between 2008 and 2010. 4. Electronic media is the great equalizer, and no one knows how it will all turn out, so get with the program. 5. With houses getting bigger, and with Boomers coming into billions of dollars in inheritances in the next ten years (with which they will purchase second homes) the furniture segment of the home furnishings industry is looking good, very good. 6. Alternative furniture (futons & specialty sleep products) will do well, very well. So said Epperson, with much humor and great detail.

I trust Epperson’s judgement of the situation, and so do a lot of other people, some of whom hire the man and his company to assess buyouts and other valuations in the home furnishings field.

In like manner I will now presume to download some futon furniture focused ‘stuff you ought to know’.

Growth Stuff

The way I see it, here in my solid cherrywood tower, futon furniture is quickly yet quietly moving into traditional, top 100 type furniture dealers. In the past these retailers shied away for several reasons. For one, the companies that dominated the frame category, just a few years ago, were too small and undercapitalized to deliver the number of units needed to stock warehouses and showrooms of companies with more than a handful of retail units. Today, United Sleep Products and Fashion Bed Group, along with August Lotz, Hickory At Home, Big Tree, and Lifestyle Solutions are making major inroads with the dealers who need more support just to get started.

Out in the marketplace consumers are asking for futon furniture, and in many cases traditional retailers, who have stayed away in the past, are getting on board the futon bus. The mattress suppliers have always been there. The frame guys are now coming up to speed. If frame (product) quality is stable and the deliveries are on time mainstream retail is a given.

Unfortunately, there is still a price point resistance to the better high end goods. This will decrease as the category proliferates. People like the comfort, value and versatility futon furniture provides, and if they have higher incomes they are willing to spend more for real furniture. All this being said, I’m betting futon furniture ensembles (frame, mattress, cover, and pillows) will begin to average in the $600 to $900 price point range in the next two years.

Web Stuff

Three years ago we started our web adventure with the Futon Life web site. We decided then that we would publish all our analog content on the web. None of our competitors followed our lead. And why should they? The furniture world is still dominated by men in suits who read analog magazines. To be totally honest with you I knew I had to be on-line, but I did not fully understand why or how it would all work out.

Today, as the furniture publications industry plays catch-up, we have become a portal site for consumers looking for information on the futon category. Our Futon Primerª is a top rated spot for anyone who wants to become a wise consumer. The best search engines typically list us in the top five or ten best links when web surfers search the word “futon.” Last month (May) we had over a half million hits from some eleven thousand unique visitors, and that generates two to five e-mails to my mail box from consumers with futon furniture questions (which I immediately answer) every day.

Bottom Line: We are the first pure furniture trade magazine on the web to make a significant impact on consumers. So significant that retailers are beginning buy space to reach them.

Show Stuff

All fact no brag, Larry Thomas is a friend. We all sit together (me, Larry, and Dale Read [my business partner and the editor of our Bedroom magazine]) at breakfasts, lunches and dinner parties (all usually sponsored by our advertisers) and discuss the ebb and flow of our niche world. Larry, every week mind you, and every day during the High Point Market, writes about the mattress and bedding world he knows better than anyone. In the past four months he has written at least three articles regarding the future of bedding at High Point always asking the proverbial question, “Should there be a mattress and bedding specialty show?”

I think Larry knows something. More next time.