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Who are the best modern furniture suppliers?
Who are the best modern furniture suppliers?
It depends on who is buying, and how much.
As you see, I work in the furniture field since - errr, forever - so I am quite into the distribution business as well.
And one of the main issues of the furniture business regarding distribution is that nowadays it is an enormous mess.
With the development of online distribution, as for Amazon, along with the fact that it has happened during the Big Recession, most of the furniture companies around the world have experienced severe problems.
The reasons are many: but the main issue is that to fully understand what you are buuying, you need to try the items you want to buy. You need to sit on them, examine how they are made, understand the coverings available and the finishings.
And this is hardly possible on a computer screen.
Add to this situation the fact that most of the fiurniture you buy needs some complicate assembly and installation, and you end up with a very tricky situation where the quality and the design of the piece you want to buy plays just a little part in the whole equation.
And also, the distribution model has changed, and is changing constantly. The latest innovations come from the big groups. From Amazon, which is developing its own line of furniture, and has launched some models recevtly, and IKEA, which is offering a lease option to the public.
So, in a situation like this, the consumer is left rightfully wondering what the best option would be - and I can say only one thing:
There is no magic formula in buying furniture: each buyer has his own preferences.
I have known people who would merrily buy everything online without skipping a beat, even the most costly pieces, and others which would require to try personally even the fabric of a single pillow - so, as you can see, there is no universal way to buy furniture.
If you are a professional retailer, the situation changes drastically.
In this case, there is only one way to buy furniture professionally - and it is, if you want to avoid surprises, to go straight to the source of the items. That is, to the place where they are presented and made available.
And I am talking about the furniture fairs.
Before the internet, before the computers, furniture was made and sold through furniture fairs, and natworks of brick and mortar stores in the different nations. But to meet the source of supply, for economic reasons, the best bet was to visit a trade fair.
The best ones are the usual suspects: Milan Salone del Mobile, Cologne IMM Cologne, Paris Maison & Objet, London 100% Design - just to stay in Europe (but Milan is the most important fair in the world, design-wise).
If you are living in the USA, I would mention also the ICFF in New York and the famous High Point Market exhibition.
But for the majority of the world market, and not just for the most select styles (which play a smallish part of the whiole market), you have to turn East.
That is, to China.
The Chinese fairs are sort of amazing, and growing steadily year by year, both for affluence and the quality of the products. And one of them actually is picking up speed amazingly, which is CIFF.
The China International Furniture Fair
is one of the most established in the business, and is organized twice a year, in March and in September, respectively in Guangzhou and in Shanghai.
The next edition of the CIFF will is scheduled for March 18-21, 2019 in Guangzhou - the city is what Westerners used to call Canton. The 43rd edition of CIFF will take place at in Hongqiao district of Guangzhou over two phases, a solution which is necessary to accommodate the whole field of the furniture business: the 1st, from 18 to 21 March 2019, is dedicated to home furnishings, outdoor and leisure furniture, home décor and home textiles; the 2nd, from 28 to 31 March, will instead be focused in office furniture, hotel furnishings, accessories, metal furniture, and furnishings for public spaces and reception areas. It will also sport a space dedicated to materials and machinery for the furniture industry.
The results of the fair are very clear. CIFF Guangzhou had an enormous success, with a 36% more affluence of the past edition, and will host over 4,100 exhibitors in the premises of the fair, extending over 760,000 square metres, around 50% more than the last edition.
The quality of the products have improved substantially. Most of the recent Chinese furniture production is stylishly made and offers a very good quality, up on a par with comparable Western furniture of the same level and niche. Forget your preconceptions about flimsy products and dangerous materials - it is not going to happen anymore.
And apart from the quality of the products and strategic alliances that the Fair has secured, the same participating companies are proceeding at the fastest pace to serve their customers worldwide, many of them offering a nononsense complete service to manage easily the import/export practices from China to everywhere esle in the world.
So, if you are a professional furniture retailer, visiting CIFF would be a smart idea. More, CIFF is held concurrently to another very good furniture fair, which is Furniture China, so you could visit both (and well, there are many of the bigger companies which exhibit in both fairs.
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