High Point Furniture Market Continues Rebound

Even as the overall market for home furnishings products, including wooden case goods, remains soft, the leading trade show for the sector showed a 6% increase in registrations.

Reflecting the overall housing market and rising interest rates, the home furnishings sector remains soft, off significantly from the boom years of the pandemic when Americans spent wildly on anything and everything for their home.

But last month’s High Point Market, the leading U.S. trade show for the furniture business, continued its rebound from the seasons when Covid restricted travel. While final attendance numbers have not been released yet, preliminary registration tallies show a 6% rise from a year ago. They remained about even with the most recent market week in October.

“We did see some great gains from last spring but were flat from last market, which was a fantastic market,” said High Point Market Authority president and chief executive officer Tammy Covington Nagem, in releasing the numbers. “We are holding that.” The organization said new buyer registrations were up 4.8% from last fall, and up 21% from a year ago.

The general sense from the show was that there were more new product introductions this season than there had been for the past several, reflecting the improvements in the supply chain that had previously restricted exhibitor’s ability to source additional products.

The market week also saw the grand opening of the American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame, a 25,000-square-foot museum and exhibition space long in the works that features areas dedicated to industry history, education and design, as well as a two-story video wall, a theater and the Hall of Fame Wall of Honor.

“Consumers will see the value of what it takes to make our furniture,” Caroline Hipple, president of Norwalk Furniture and first woman president of the Home Furnishings Hall of Fame, said at the opening ceremony. “For educators and students, this is going to be an amazing, living, growing and constantly evolving place, and we invite you all to be part of it.”

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