Customers Crave Original Products

A $12,000 hand-tooled and hand-carved Italian frame leather sofa is one of the more expensive items co-owner Glenda Milam has special-ordered for her customers at Lighting Emporium in Springdale. More and more, Milam said, customers are seeking originality.

“All people seek originality,” Milam said, “and when you seek that, it will eventually take you to upscale.”

Data from the American Furniture Manufacturers Association said sales of household furniture in Arkansas increased 16.1 percent, from $159 million in 2002 to $184 million in 2003. But it’s not clear how much of that is upscale or the cheap stuff.

Furniture buyers in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan statistical area alone spent $23.6 million last year, although the area’s sales grew the least of the state’s largest markets (see chart).

Milam, who’s owned Lighting Emporium with her husband Ron for 15 years, said their business has grown from a 3,000-SF lighting showroom to 22,000 SF of expanded inventory that includes furniture. She estimates that lighting is still about 55 to 60 percent of her business. More furnishings manufacturers are eying Northwest Arkansas, she said.

“We get calls from people saying you don’t have our brand,” Milam said, “but they want to show us their product.”

Although local builders have stuck with the trendy country-French exterior look, one AFMA expert said interiors might be moving on. Pat Boling, the AFMA’s director of communications in High Point, N.C., said the new trend is toward a more formal French look.

At the spring International Home Furnishings Market, which is also in High Point, Boling said she noted more companies with contemporary designs and a lot of art deco influence.

Sarah Founders, interior designer with Take Us For Granite in Lowell, agrees that the country-French furor of the last five years is fading.

“People aren’t looking to more straight modern and sleek,” Founders said. “Just that soft look, just cleaning up the clutter, getting things organized and making a room look clean.”

Founders said she sees young professionals with a lot more buying power. Many customers might spend $2,000 to $15,000 to furnish a medium-grade room, Founders said.

Don Fitzgerald, architect for Keating Enterprises Inc. in Fayetteville, said he started seeing the country-French design emerge the Northwest Arkansas market in the late 1980s. Before that, he said, homes in the ranch style, with a lower roof pitch, were popular.

“As your population comes into the area, the builders are trying to provide a product that sells and people want it,” Fitzgerald said. “It seems to be country-French at this time.”

Fitzgerald designs homes for The Vineyards subdivision in Goshen, developed by Keating Enterprises. Dick Keating, a principal in the company, said he decided to build spec homes in the country-French style in The Vineyards because the 8-in-12 roof pitch slope (an 8-inch rise for every horizontal foot) in his neighborhood covenants lends itself to the design.

Furnishing Financials
The following is a breakdown of household furniture sales in millions:

Sales* — 2003 — 2002 — % Change

Statewide — $184.6 — $159.0 — 16.1%
Non-Metropolitan Areas — $63.8 — $56.6 — 12.7%
Little Rock MSA — $64.7 — $52.5 — 23.2%
Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers MSA — $23.6 — $22.0 — 7.3%
Fort Smith MSA — $17.4 — $14.1 — 23.4% —

*Does not include sales from mass retail stores such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., only furniture and department stores. — Source: American Furniture Manufacturers Association