6 minute read
Cover Story
“Our customers are
more diverse than ever”
Jay Fingert, senior vice president, Noritake talks to Tableware International about the brand’s exciting new launches, and how it is navigating the industry today…
Jay, thank you for speaking with us. How has business been for Noritake recently?
Sales of tableware, like most home goods, had been unbelievably good beginning within weeks of the start of Covid. By late May 2020, online retailers and traditional retailers with developed websites were seeing large year-over-year increases. When physical stores began to reopen, they experienced similar sales increases. The only limitation on sales were supply chain related. Since the start of this year the same economic trends and concerns are affecting us like everyone else. The cumulative effect of supply chain issues, price increases, and inflation concerns have resulted in slowing sales and a much more conservative approach to purchasing and promotions from key partners.
Noritake is presenting its Charlotta Gold and Trefolio Holiday collections on the front cover of this issue – tell us more about these collections.
Holiday dinnerware is a big seller as a gift and for personal use. Many people want to have holiday tableware but don’t want to invest in a complete set.
Charlotta Gold, our first
Did you know?
Noritake recently introduced two new collections – Colorstax Stripe and Colorstax Ombre.
introduction with microwave-safe gold, was a huge success from the start. We knew its embossed gold band design lent itself to holiday extensions from the beginning. In 2021 we introduced sets of four mugs and accent plates in tree and harvest designs. This year we are adding sets of four appetizer plates in both designs. Trefolio Gold has a different origin story. Like Charlotta Gold, the pattern was a success from the start. Unlike Charlotta, we weren’t targeting holiday themes when we started working on extensions. We were working on items in additional colours to use as giftware. We quickly saw that red and green looked great and were perfect for Christmas.
Who is a typical Noritake customer in the US?
There really isn’t a typical Noritake customer. Our customers are more diverse than ever. For generations Noritake had built a reputation as a leading bridal registry brand. While we still pride ourselves on being a leader in this category, wedding registry has changed and its share of sales of better tableware have changed with it. Consumers purchasing better tableware for their own use have become a larger and larger share of our business.
The share of our business from consumers purchasing better tableware for their own use had been growing for several years to the point it had become larger than wedding registries share. That trend has accelerated with the events of the last two years as people are looking inward to home and family and have developed a greater appreciation for all home goods, including tableware.
One thing our customers have in common is a desire for quality. We are seeing strong increases in newer patterns and collections and ones
ColorScapes Layers in ash is one of Noritake’s newest collections
with long histories, both fine and casual patterns and collections.
In casual our colour and shape offerings continue to resonate with our customers. Our iconic Colorwave Collection – introduced in 1998 – now with 17 colours and four shape options, continues to be popular with today’s customer. Sales of single colour/ shape sets and as open stock for easy mixing and matching are both strong. Along with the additional Stax collections, we also just launched Colorscapes Layers, as
a complement to our successful solid colour Colorscapes collection. Layers features subtle textures of coiling concentric circles and colour band gradations.
As you are US-based, tell us more about the tabletop business stateside, are supply chain issues something which are affecting you as much as your European counterparts?
The way people buy tableware, has that changed in your view?
The percentage of people researching and purchasing tableware online has grown and continues to grow. For some markets like the US, the internet was already huge for tableware. While it wasn’t as important in every market, it was growing steadily everywhere. In the last two years, that growth accelerated everywhere.
The US has suffered from the same supply chain issues as Europe. Noritake’s US business in heavily weighted towards consumer products. Because HoReCa is a smaller percentage of our business the lack of demand from the travel and restaurant industries have had less of an effect on us. As I mentioned earlier, consumer sales were only down for a few weeks. Demand from the hospitality sector was off for a much longer time.
You can’t just snap your fingers and have a warehouse full of product to sell.
What are the biggest challenges facing the global tableware industry at the moment?
Uncertainty. Covid-19 has caused enormous suffering for the entire world. The last two and a half years have been unprecedented for people and businesses dealing with one crisis after another. The world shutting down early in 2020 was only the beginning. The fallout with labour shortages, increases in fuel costs, transportation, and raw materials, not to mention war and inflation, seem never to end. When things seem to be stabilising, something else happens.
Navigating these crises and adapting to the changes in consumer behaviour they’ve brought is a challenge. Communication and partnership between suppliers and customers are vital for minimising problems and developing products and programs for the future.
Finally, is there anything we should be particularly excited about from Noritake in coming months?
I’m always excited about the future. One of my favourite quotes is credited to Winston Churchill. “To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.” From merchandise to configurations to processes we’re always looking for ways we can improve. In the coming months we will see the impact from improvements to our flow of merchandise from our factories. Our successful 12 piece set and sets of four programs will expand as these configurations are being added to all of our bestselling patterns.
Spotlight on new launches
Infinity Blue and Noble Pearl are two of Noritake’s newest global introductions. Both patterns showcase Noritake’s full range of craftsmanship, design, and manufacturing capabilities. Infinity Blue has interlocking keys and blocks that contain a marbled design in shades of blue and is embellished with raised enamel dots and an etched platinum band. Noble Pearl achieves a shadowy effect by pairing gold lines with subtle light grey and has raised enamel dots and an etched gold band.
Meanwhile, in markets such as the US, Noritake has expanded its popular Stax shape recently adding navy and blush to the ColorTex Stone collection.
“We also introduced two new collections each in multiple colourways which blend each colour hue from light to dark. As their names suggest, Colorstax Stripe does so with a stripe effect and Colorstax Ombre uses a more subtle ombre effect,” Jay tells us.
