High Point — Among today's hottest-selling furniture are pieces for use with some other favorite consumer goods, including books, watch-at-home movies and wine bottles.
In planning their lines, furniture manufacturers keep a close watch on buying trends.
"Americans have an insatiable appetite for entertainment ... and spend an astounding amount of money," said Pam Danziger, president of marketing research company Unity Marketing. "Last year Americans spent $620.1 billion on recreation and entertainment, nearly 50% more than on clothing and accessories, and more than the GNP of Canada."
This figure includes books, music CDs, VHS and DVD movies, magazines, sporting goods and cameras. In her latest survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers, Danziger reported that 74% bought books, magazines or newsletters in the last year, the highest of any category surveyed.
Sales at the three largest book and music chains rose 9.4% in the second quarter of 2003 over the previous year. Barnes & Noble, Borders/Waldenbooks and Books-A-Million had total sales of $1.92 billion for the quarter, according to Publishers Weekly.
Dan Sumner, vice president of sales and marketing for occasional furniture producer Butler Specialty, said he could see crowds of people at Barnes and Noble and knew a need existed for storing all these books. At the October 2002 market, Butler brought out a small, round bookcase that garnered much attention and is now the ninth highest rated in sales out of the 500 pieces in the company's line.
A novel idea
Book storage is a best-selling feature at other companies as well.
Another increasingly popular product is wine. Wine shipments to the United States last year amounted to 595 million gallons, a 6% increase from 2001, wine industry consultant Jon Fredrikson said in his company's year-end Gomberg-Fredrikson Report. Even more noteworthy, wine consumption has grown by one-third in the past decade.
Among those raising a glass to the category is The Powell Co., which came out with several wine storage pieces at the last two High Point markets.
"Anything with wine storage continues to do well," said John Conrad, vice president of merchandising for step-up division Powell Limited.
Consumers like pieces with hidden storage and cutting boards, he said.
For this week's High Point market, Powell is planning several home bars with storage for bottles, stemware, corkscrews, serving trays and other accessories. Some will have locks to keep kids out, Conrad said.
"We came out with five wine cabinets at the last market," said Butler Specialty's Sumner. All are selling well, and another five are being brought out this market.
A wine cabinet introduced in April is the company's 23rd best-selling piece out of 500. Sumner joked that he's got an eye out for other popular beverages — "If I could figure out a way to capitalize off Starbucks, I'd do it."
Prerecorded entertainment media — DVDs, VHS movies, music CDs — also are strong sellers. Danziger said this category was second to reading materials among the most-purchased entertainment and recreational goods. Her survey indicated that 62% of consumers had bought prerecorded media in the past year; that number grew to 75% for those with incomes above $25,000.
That's entertainment
Entertainment equipment also is moving off the shelves. DVD player sales are up 25% this year, according to the Consumer Electronics Assn., to 10.3 million units through Aug. 22. Another 877,000 TV/DVD player combination units have been sold, up from 254,000 for the same period last year. The growth of DVDs hasn't wiped out VCR sales, meanwhile, with 3.95 million sold this year to date, as well as 1.9 million TV/VCR units.
Also rising are sales of digital TVs (including direct view, projection, plasma and LCD models). Last year, the number sold wasn't significant enough for the CEA to track. So far this year, sales have reached nearly 2 million sets.
Don't count out old-fashioned TVs, either. While sales are down 11.8%, retailers still have sold 11.9 million so far this year.
With such a variety of entertainment products going into homes, furniture makers must offer furniture that adapts well. Entertainment walls must make room for various sizes of TVs and components including DVD players, VCRs, satellite receivers and stereo receivers. Extra space must be available for surround-sound speakers, camcorders and prerecorded media.
"We are seeing the home theater business grow," said Hank Long, senior vice president of merchandising and design for Hooker Furniture.
Also picking up this year, after a downturn in 2002, is the home computer business.
About 14.4 million desktop and laptop computers were sold in 2001, according to the CEA. This dipped to 13.8 million last year, but is projected to rebound to 15 million this year.
Laptops are becoming less of a luxury and more of a necessity on college campuses. Kids' rooms and college dorms don't have a lot of space, so teens are getting laptops or desktop computers with flat-screen monitors that take up less space, said Powell Co.'s Conrad.
In response, a number of furniture manufacturers have either just released small desks suitable for laptops or have new ones ready for the October market.
