Dianne Ray, one of the owners of Garden City Furniture, is the president of the National Home Furnishings Association. 11/03/11 Photo by Charles Slate  Similar

After a rough couple of years for the furniture industry, store owners and manufacturers continue to make the trek to the High Point Market for the twice yearly furniture show.

The High Point Market, in High Point, N.C., is the furniture industry’s largest trade show in the world and brings together about 85,000 buyers and manufacturers twice a year. The market is housed in about 180 buildings and has about 10 million square feet of display space for all the latest in furniture trends.

Dianne Ray, the owner of Garden City Furniture, who is also the president of the National Home Furnishings Association, recently returned from this years furniture market. Ray grew up in the furniture industry, watching her dad run a furniture store and has been managing the Garden City Beach store for many years.

Ray answered a few questions about the market and the state of the furniture industry.

Question | What is the High Point furniture market like?

Answer | It is a lot of fun to get up there and look at all the new stuff, but it’s a lot of hard work. ...You’ve got to decide where you’re going to go what you’re going to look at and those kinds of things, and then you’ve got to know what you’re open to buy and what to change on the floor so it’s really a work process to go through before you even get there to decide what you’re going to do at market.

The vendors all have spaces – some are large and some are small -- and they have them displayed very pretty. You get tremendous ideas from them from what they’re doing at market….It’s a lot of walking to do and a lot of talking to do. You start early in the morning and you visit as many as you can.

Q | How was the market this year?

A | It was great. It was very upbeat. In fact there was an increase in attending traffic, which we were very happy to see and most people were buying. Over these last three to four years people have let their inventories get very low, so most people are open to buy. The consumer is out moving around more so that’s good, they tell us here’s what we are looking for...Of course there’s been a change in the markets at High Point ... International Market Centers, IMCs, now owns the majority of the show rooms in High Point and the ones in [Las] Vegas.

Q| How has the market changed?

A | You don’t do as much buying at market as we used to, you want to come back home and go through all your notes and make sure you’ve got everything covered and usually they have representatives that will come to the store and write up the orders for that...

There are fewer vendors. We’ve seen some consolidation and some buyouts and a lot of people go out of business so there are fewer vendors.

Q | What were some of the popular items at the October market?

A | The hot ticket market this past market is what is referred to as bonded leather. Well what is bonded leather? Well it’s a man made leather, but it has leather in it. They take all the scraps and the chips and the second and third hides that they shave off the hides and stuff, and they crush it all up and bond it with some sort of bonding material and you can paint it or die it and it is virtually indestructible… you can put two chairs side by side one being real leather and one being bonded and you virtually couldn’t tell the difference.. it amazed me it feels just like leather it sits just like leather but it’s bonded leather it’s not real leather…it’s hundreds of dollars in price difference.

Modern and contemporary made a huge splash. Of course we don’t carry a lot of modern and contemporary. ..I don’t think our architecture here in Myrtle Beach lends itself to a lot of contemporary.

Q | In your role as the president of the National Home Furnishings Association you get to meet a lot of business owners and manufacturers. What are the biggest challenges in the business?

A | Well of course the economy is the biggest challenge for everybody right now the other thing is resolving the affects of imports. There’s the tariffs that come into play, those kinds of things are serious business because it normally involves a lot of money those tariffs are imposed on manufacturers and they’re only going to trickle down that price to you the purchaser... Sales tax issues is a huge problem for our industry right now. Truck driving hours and all those little things affect our industry, therefore it is very important for our association to have a strong voice in Washington to let them know how it affects the small retailer.

Q | What changes have you made as a result of the economy?

A | We have also adapted our displays as the economy was sinking ...We realized that the consumer was being very frugal with their purchases and they wanted still good quality and a good price for it, but they were not willing to pay for what we call the name brand products anymore.

There was so much out there that looks like it because of the Chinese influence into our industry so we had to make some changes in our lineup, in who we were carrying and what we were selling and it was difficult there for a while because everything is imported now and it all looks the same...We ended up changing some of our mix. We’ve lowered our price points into what we call medium to upper medium price points.

Q | How is the Grand Strand furniture industry doing?

A | It mirrors the real estate market. If the real estate is having a good market, we’re having a good market. If not, we know our businesses are going to suffer too and they have been.