January is traditionally a very busy month. Our trade customers will have had a sale period, reduced their stock holdings and window displays and in theory, would be hungry for more stock. Hence the popularity of the Furniture Show at Birmingham's NEC. For many years The Febland Group have had a big stand at this fair, which is now succinctly entitled "The Interiors Event".
2009 was different in that many holes were evident in the halls, and that there were even less halls! Obviously, exhibitors were scarce on the ground and some exhibitors must have gone into receivership or possibly disappeared between paying for their stands and the start of the show. Such a stand was close to our display and the organisers generously allowed us to populate it. We quickly got the resident electricians to light it up (for an extortionate fee!) and we put all our bargain items on it with big tickets showing new and tempting prices.
On the first day of the show, (Sunday 18th) loads of people turned up and by noon the corridors were bursting with humanity. Amongst the throng however, there were few bona-fide furniture shop proprietors. The phenomenon of the e-tailers, designers looking for some impossible dream and the architectural students were obviously the major constituent of the attendees albeit with a fair sprinkling of reluctant children with their shopkeeper parents dragging them in on a Sunday. Some younger children protested by throwing their dummies out of their push chairs and some by sitting on every available chair and leaving DNA and fingerprints on EVERY piece of glass furniture.
Sunday was that sort of day but Monday and Tuesday definitely improved as the professionals came in and made a bee-line for our new designer lines and picked through the swatches of new fabric designs, some of which worked out at over £50 per metre. We were expecting a barrage of importers from Europe, considering their money is so strong, making our paltry sterling prices look really inviting. Only a few such buyers materialised, maybe business is as tough in Euro land as it is currently in the UK?
Many usual customers missed out on the journey this year but those who made it ordered with great confidence and we were delighted to see the orders largely fitted the stock in our warehouses and we duly delivered a great chunk of the orders the following week.
When we shook the dust out of the fair we found that orders were slightly up on 2008. So all considered, it was a good show.
Next came the Spring Fair; Sunday 1st February to Thursday 5th. I would say the snow was the winner at this show. After a decent Sunday all the media spewing out warnings about the imprudence of travelling and as sure as eggs are eggs the customers heeded the warnings and stayed away in their droves. You could have predicted that the absence of visitors would completely throttle business but curiously the brave folk who were already within 30 miles of the NEC turned up and laid decent orders on the erstwhile despondent exhibitors. It was generally agreed that
the Monday was a good day all round.
Once again the show was characterised by empty spaces around the 14 halls and in the fine jewellery section this was particularly obvious. It seems that luxury jewellery is no longer a must have accessory in these days of depression. Shrewd dealers are acquiring gold bullion, the price of the metal has gone up at a time when all the traders are trying to reduce their prices as to tempt a few customers over their thresholds. There were certainly some long faces in those gold, diamond and time-piece stands but we don't need to feel too compassionate for them, for the preceding ten golden years has brought them considerable bounty.
I'm sure they can still afford to buy a Bounty bar.
Our stand this year was long and thin. We dressed it into 5 bays of 7 metres width apiece. Our stand designers decided to wall paper the back walls to show off the chandeliers, mirrors, clocks and consoles. Our new mirrored cabinets and pedestals took off big style and the new nest of three mirrored tables were exceptionally well received. We were favoured by the visit of the lovely Nigerian ladies who have attended the show for a few years and tend to come back for more stock to those companies who look after them best. When we added it all up on the Thursday, I think we were ahead of Mr Snow and we slid home up the gritty M6 with a certain amount of optimism for the forthcoming months.
We will surely be back for more punishment in 2010.