Home Accents Today

At the 2008 High Point Fall Market, Robin Baron and a renowned panel of industry leaders discuss the impact of interior design on the home furnishings business and consumers.

From “Press breakfast stresses importance of interior designers”, By Jenny Heinzen York:

PROFESSIONAL INTERIOR designers are a growing factor in the health of the home furnishings business, panelists told the media at a High Point Market Authority breakfast Monday.

Panelists included industry analyst Jerry Epperson; Farooq Kathwari, chairman, president and CEO of Ethan Allen; Fred Berk, president of COO of Robb & Stucky; Todd Hady, vice president of sales and marketing for Kincaid Furniture; and Robin Baron, president of Robin Baron Design Inc.

Kathwari said that in the last 10 years, he has witnessed significant changes in the home furnishings marketplace, and Ethan Allen has shifted its way of doing business to avoid being caught between big box, mass market furniture retailers and very small, custom operations.

“We decided we would create a business based on migrating to the interior designer,” he said, noting that the company now has 200 design centers, and 60% of its product is proprietary.

“American consumers are becoming more knowledgeable, becoming more stylish, becoming more eclectic, and also more busy,” Kathwari said.  “Today people are spending more and more time at their homes.  Look around—times are tough.”

Hady said Kincaid also has changed its business model over the last two years to court the business of interior designers.

“We are a designer’s best kept secret,” he said.  “We have really shifted our business over the last two years to accommodate designers,” noting that Kincaid’s domestic production of case goods has allowed for greater levels of customization.

Berk said Robb & Stucky stores were really “interior design studios that happen to be furniture stores.”

“The primary objective we have as a company: We don’t sell furniture, we place it,” he said, noting that once the needs, wants and budgets of clients are met, “we don’t have to worry about selling it.”

Baron said her job as a designer is to add value to people’s lives.

“We do more than make a home beautiful,” she said.  “We impact customers’ lives in a profound way.  We add tremendous value to their lives—we save them time, we save stress and we save them money.”

She said she was pleased to see the new emphasis in High Point on courting designers’ business, and said it’s now more important than ever.

“In this economy, people may not be going out to dinner, they may not be traveling as much, but they will be staying home.”