Lots to Cover, Not Much Time:

Tupelo Fall 2004

I went to the acclaimed Tupelo Furniture Market in August to see what it was all about. In a certain sense it was an eye opener. Many major players in the furniture business were there, and the buyers that mean the most to them came and left without much fanfare. The futon sofa sleeper industry was well represented. Big Tree, Wolf, MIWA, Lifestyle Solutions, Donco, CottonWorks, Symbol Mattress, FBG, Royal Sleep Products and others all put their best foot forward.

I have read and heard quite a bit about Tupelo over the years. Maybe the times are changing now that Las Vegas is on the calendar for next summer. Tupelo has been marketed as a national show for upholstery and promotional goods, kind of like a Larry Karel show on steroids. I see Tupelo as a major regional show for these two segments. Though I heard many say the Fall 2004 show was good for them, they also added that traffic was a bit slow for this market.

I think the other regional and moving shows will all feel the pinch in the coming years as Las Vegas becomes a reality, and the expense of too many shows for buyers and sellers alike distills the options down to only two or three shows per year.

FAI and Las Vegas

The Association Board (of which I am a member) recently came to an agreement for a 20,000 square foot space at the WMC inaugural show in July of 2005. FAI is currently one of the show’s largest exhibitors.

All the cries of “its too hot in Las Vegas in July,” are now turning into, “You’ve got to have more room than that available, I need more space.” The first show at the WMC will rock and FAI will be front and center. Many FAI member manufacturers have already locked in to permanent and temporary space at the show. But with a couple of hundred thousand feet being scooped up fast, many smaller exhibitors, and those who want to tie into the marketing and larger footprint of the Association, will now have a great place to be.

The Association will be sending out contracts to exhibitors soon. The plan requires a deposit and then two additional installments in January and April, mirroring the WMC payment plan. For up to date information about the Futon Expo & Specialty Sleep Show® at the World Market Center in Las Vegas, July 18-22, 2005 contact the Association @ 407-447-1706 or visit their web site www.futon.org.

Buffet Buys Into Furniture…Again!

Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway investment firm recently purchased a 9% stake in Pier One (8 million shares valued at over $140 million), which is currently number 15 in F/T’s Top 25 and number 100 in the top 100 retailers nationally as ranked by Triversity, as released in STORES magazine, the official publication of the National Retail Federation. Buffet currently owns several furniture/retail stocks including Jordans, Star Furniture, R.C. Willey and Nebraska Furniture Mart. Could this be a fundamental nod to the future of the home furnishings business in general? Buffet has been very successful at buying low and selling high, but he is also known as a long view investor. If you take this perspective and add Jerry Epperson’s upbeat analysis and the current numbers for orders, shipments, and retail activity in our segment optimism would certainly be in order.

Futon Life Web Site On Fire

Records are meant to be broken and so it goes with our web site. We almost topped 30,000 unique visits with 111,247 page views. That breaks down to 3.74 pages per visit. With the national average at about one minute per page view that puts each visitor at the site for almost four minutes. In other internet related news, almost 75 percent of the US population is online and e-commerce accounts for almost 2 percent of all retail sales nationwide. That translates into about $16 billion for Q2 in 2004. (Web stats ClickZ Internet Statistics) Here are our stats for the past four months:

We are also proud to say that we come up number one or two on all four major search engines (Google #1, MSN #1, Yahoo #2, AOL #1). Unlike many other sites vying for these highly desired listings, futonlife.com is ranked based upon the value of our content and its value to web surfers searching for all things futon. Hey, it’s a niche.

Mayor Laffey Running Against UNION Puppet

Mayor Steve Laffey has been challenged by another Republican in a primary. Garry Reilly, a heretofore unknown, is challenging Laffey on behalf of his wife’s union. You guessed it, she is a Cranston Crossing Guard. The Crossing Guards in Cranston work one hour per day, get $45 per hour, full family health insurance, with no co-pay or deductible, and generous payouts for uniforms. They collect unemployment during the summer, get paid for holidays and have a “no layoff” clause in their contracts too. Laffey eliminated the whole Crossing Guards program (which costs the city about $950,000) and was ready to hire an outside professional company to take over when a liberal RI judge forced the city to reinstate the guards.

These primary races typically pit a reformer against well-financed and well-manned special interests. In this case, Laffey’s opponent and his handlers have gone as far as getting Democrats to disaffiliate from the Democratic party so they can vote in the Republican primary. How do I know this, you ask? Well, they (the lawyer for the union that represents the Crossing Guards in particular) showed up at the Board of Canvassers with a stack of 270 voter disaffiliation cards. Talk about brazen misuse of the system. But that’s not all. At a recent City Council meeting, the President of the Cranston Firefighters’ Union, Paul Valletta, attacked Mayor Laffey in public (while TV cameras recorded the whole event) and threatened him with bodily harm. “I’ll knock you out,” was the exact quote. People screamed, policemen laughed and the mayor remained calm, called his wife and told her to lock
the doors.

The following day, Reilly went on the radio to defend his man and lied about what had happened at the meeting. The radio host, Dan Yorke, played the audio and challenged Reilly with the facts to no avail. Yorke publicly called Reilly a “moron” and a “certified idiot” and ultimately cancelled a debate between the two men on the show just before the primary. All things being equal, there has never been a clearer or more definitive opportunity for the voting public to see corruption and thuggery vs. honesty and integrity, nor a better opportunity to slam the door on corruption forever. All the people have to do is come out and vote. If they do, and our opponent has insured a huge turnout with his antics, Laffey will move to the general election in November with a resounding victory for the people. I love this country.

Updates and Sundry Details

In our last issue, we began to cover the China phenomenon with the hope of bringing you an update on the status of China’s presence in the futon trade. This will have to wait until a future issue. Many companies are working feverishly to get their China programs going while others have established their base factories and are looking for additional resources. With all this activity, we believe it may be six months to a year before our contacts (the major manufacturers and suppliers to the category) have their programs in place and are confident in their abilities to deliver. As the China story continues to develop, we will cover it and will bring you the big picture as it relates to our category as soon as possible.

We will be bringing you our Annual Retailer Survey results in the Winter 2004-05 issue
coming up in January. Last year, the Futon Association conducted their first-ever survey for the industry. There are currently no plans for a 2004 or 2005 survey.

The SEries-The Bowl

The Red Sox just finished a sweep of the Oakland As and are only two games behind NY for the AL East lead. They are also five games up in the wild card race. The Sox will win the seventh game of the World Series against the Houston Astros in a Clemens vs. Martinez or Schilling duel in October. Also, by the time our next issue hits (mid January ’05), the NE Patriots will have broken the Dolphins’ consecutive game winning streak record and be headed to a Division title and their third Super Bowl in four years. It’s chicken dance time, Rich.

FL