Monday, December 20, 2010
THE BUSINESS AND FASHION NEWSPAPER OF THE HOME TEXTILES INDUSTRY
Heimtextil Tweaks Layout BY CAROLE SLOAN FRANKFURT, GERMANY — Home textiles fashion trends, sustainability and new aspects of the contract business will be key themes at Heimtextil here next month. A three day program during this major international trade fair – which runs January 12 to 15 – will focus on how fashion influences home textiles in terms of color, pattern and ma-
terials as one key element. Sustainability in home fabrics and products will be discussed in terms of statutory regulations, ethical rules and global standards as well as eco-labels during sustainability sessions and a discussion of the standards and changes in the contract segment will be the focus for the discussions in this segment. For home textiles and other product categories, Heimtextil SEE LAYOUT PAGE 23
Claude Litton Celebrates Retirement Business associates and tenants of New York showroom building 295 Fifth Avenue gathered last week to see off building president and ceo Claude Litton, who is retiring. In his 32 years of managing the property, Litton, seen here with his wife, Rosalee, transformed 295 into a major hub for the home textiles industry. See page 23 for additional party photos.
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It’s a White Christmas Online BY WARREN SHOULBERG SEATTLE — Everyone knows that e-commerce will be one of the shining retail stars of this holiday season, but hardly anybody knows what home textiles products are actually selling online. Nobody, that is, except for Amazon … and now us. Amazon posts lists of its best selling products in a variety of product classifications and the information on best-selling home textiles products confirms several anecdotal assumptions the industry has had about this channel: • Pillows and other white goods are a very strong online business. Four of the top 10 Amazon bed and bath sellers fall into the product category.
• Specialized products that may be hard to find at conventional retail outlets sell well online. Silk and specialty bedding and pillows dot much of the list. • Fashion remains a tough sell through the internet. There is only one fashion bedding group to break into Amazon’s top 10. • Brands really don’t matter much in home textiles. Out of traditional home textiles brands, only Martex shows up in the Amazon rankings. By the time the holiday season is over, the actual final rankings may change, but as of late last week, the 10 best-selling home textiles products on Amazon showed that white is most certainly right online. The best-selling bed and bath SEE SALES PAGE 23
Ann Gish Preps Retail Store BY CAROLE SLOAN N EW YORK — Ann Gish Inc., the luxury linens designer/supplier, will open a retail store here and change its marketing strategy dramatically in 2011. The company no longer is represented in sales by Codarus. Its sales efforts now are being headed by Anne Maas, formerly of Robb & Stucky, who will lead the newly forming sales team, said Ann Gish, president. New sales reps are Kathy Stafford for West Florida, Sebum Bass for the Carolinas and Adriana Riddle for Mexico. The company will exhibit in highend temporary exhibition spaces at HD Home in
Atlanta, Accent on Design in New York, Home Finds in Dallas, and Interhall in High Point, N.C. The company’s new facilities here will include a retail store, wholesale showroom, and design studio at 150 Fifth Avenue — a landmark building — on the southwest corner of 20th Street and Fifth Avenue. The space is about 4,000 square feet on the street floor for the retail store, and almost 3,000 square feet in the basement for storage. The store will not be a typical linen store, Gish commented. “I’m excited to be able to buy things for a linens store my way — with special furniture pieces, case goods for bedrooms, lighting, art work SEE GISH PAGE 23
Online Marketplace Keeps Pace CHICAGO — The online marketplace is growing, and furnishing sales along with it, according to Jennifer Vlahavas, senior director of Comscore, a digital marketing media intelligence provider. Her presentation at the Sandow Media Online Technologies Conference in Chicago looked at the overall world of
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ecommerce, then drilled down to furnishings-specific data. Comscore uses a 2 million member panel of consumers, representing more than 170 countries and 43 markets, to gather its data. According to its data, following a soft 2009, total e-commerce sales through Q2 2010
were up 7% vs. a year ago. Last year recorded $209 billion in online sales. Also notable, ecommerce continues to gain share of retail spending, hitting 8.1% of overall sales in the first quarter of 2010. The middle-income segment ($50,000-$99,000 household in SEE COMSCORE PAGE 12
12/16/2010 4:20:53 PM