'Made in USA' gaining favor
Ray Allegrezza, Editor in chief -- Furniture Today, 5/12/2008

If you've been in the business for a while, here's something I bet you haven't heard in some time: Made in America. But based on a recent series of events, that appears to be changing.

Some say the shift is due to the anemic U.S. dollar. Others point to the rising cost of raw materials in China. And yet others blame the escalating transportation costs associated with imports.

Actually, they're all right. But I suspect there is another, less obvious driver: vulnerability.

While imports continue to represent the lion's share of furniture sold in this country, I wonder, especially considering our current economic reality, how many former domestic manufacturers now wish they had kept some segments of their U.S. plants up and running.

I do know that there has been a flurry of activity by some domestic companies that believe bringing at least some manufacturing back home is beneficial.

For example, after a 12-year hiatus, Alabama-based Standard Furniture has reentered the promotional business with a number of bedroom suites made at its Frisco City plant. President and CEO Billy Hodgson and his team boosted efficiency at the plant and reduced its labor costs, and in the process realized it could hit key price points with U.S. goods.

Similarly, Davis International's Lynn Davis recently began producing more than a dozen new upholstery frames in his Houlka, Miss., facto ry. He knew the spike in transportation costs to ship these frames, slated to retail from $399 to $499, and would take him out of the import game.

Accent furniture firm Carolina Accents recently bought a 230,000-square-foot factory in Mississippi to produce its wares domestically.

And it's not just the hometown heroes who are moving in this direction. An Ikea contractor opened a 930,000-square-foot factory in Virginia to produce upholstered furniture and mattresses for the stores.

OK, so maybe this isn't a massive paradigm shift. Let's call it a paradigm shimmer. Either way, I think it's a good move. It puts a bit more "blended" back into the idea of a blended strategy.

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