January 25, 1921 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



31 



Little Furniture Bought in Grand Rapids 



Plenty of Buyers Visited Market but They Failed to Respond to 15 Per Cent Cut in Prices 



Furniture was not sold in the January market either in 

 Grand Rapids or elsewhere in sufficient quantity to war- 

 rant any great amount of optimism in the immediate 

 future. 



The Grand Rapids market found on exhibition the 

 largest number of lines in its history. Every inch of 

 space in the six buildings, as well as the factory show- 

 rooms, was occupied, and many store windows were 

 utilized for exhibition purposes, while a considerable 

 number w^ho desired to exhibit were unable to secure any 

 sort of space in which to show their lines. 



The lines this season, too, constituted an almost new^ 

 and unfamiliar spectacle, for every manufacturer, ap- 

 parently realizing that the buyer must be tempted, had 

 brought out new designs of rare and unusual beauty until 

 even the oldest buyers were forced to spend a day or so 

 just looking. 



Prices had been cut on an average of fifteen per cent 

 in all lines in the hope that this would serve to tempt the 

 buyer. All these conditions did bring buyers to Grand 

 Rapids, but it failed to tempt them to buy liberally. The 

 total number of buyers registered in the Grand Rapids 

 market was at its close, January 22, about 1,700, which 

 is but little short of the number who came a year 

 ago, and far ahead of any records established prior to 

 the great rushes immediately following the armistice. 

 But they did not buy. A rather careful survey of the 

 condition shows that the average manufacturer took only 

 enough orders in the January market to run his factory 

 for two weeks, and mighty few of them will start up for 

 so short a run unless the salesmen who are already out 

 upon the road can hold out promises of sufficient business 

 to keep the plants in operation a considerably longer 

 period. 



As showing the present condition of the future manu- 

 facturing business, the results of a questionnaire sent out 

 by the National Alliance of Case Goods Manufacturers 

 late in December becomes interesting. This question- 

 naire showed the following: 



Replies to questionnaire received from 1 37 case goods 

 manufacturers. 



Eighty per cent of them were not operating their fac- 

 tories at all. 



About forty-four per cent hoped to start up again in 

 January. 



Eight per cent thought it likely they would be able to 

 start about February I . 



Thirty per cent declared they w^ould not attempt to 

 operate until orders justified and gave promise of con- 

 tinuous operation. 



Those who expected to start operations in January in- 

 dicated that they did not expect to run more than forty- 



four hours a week and with not more than seventy-two 

 per cent of their normal number of men. 



It is figured out that all this means that case goods will 

 not be produced on a basis of more than about fifty-three 

 per cent of normal output. 



That questionnaire was sent out before the January 

 market opened and at a time when manufacturers be- 

 lieved that while the market would be much more quiet 

 than during the last four seasons, it would still show a 

 liberal ordering of merchandise. The replies w^ere sent 

 when holiday sales had been rather surprisingly good and 

 manufacturers were led to believe that dealers" stocks 

 would be low and that there would be considerable al- 

 though careful buying. 



The first week of the market saw in round numbers 

 1,000 buyers in Grand Rapids, but while they came and 

 looked and looked, very few^ indeed of them could be 

 enticed to allow a salesman to get out his pencil and 

 order blank and when they did it was a very small fill 

 in order. 



Eastern buyers came with the avowed intention of 

 "breaking " the market. They looked at the new de- 

 signs with interest but at the price tags scornfully. Al- 

 most without exception they frankly told the manufac- 

 turers that a fifteen per cent reduction in the price of 

 furniture w^as not sufficient to entice the buying public, 

 w^hich in the last four months had ben educated to "one- 

 third off" and "'one-half off" and all that sort of thing, 

 which may be found in every newspaper and in almost 

 every store window. They held that the woman who 

 could buy in the department stores at fifty per cent of 

 what she had been paying could not be induced to ^Duy 

 furniture at a reduction of but fifteen per cent, and they 

 further declared that customers were asking when they 

 saw a furniture suite that pleased them, "How much has 

 that been reduced?" and the fifteen per cent reply proved 

 entirely unattractive. 



While the buyers were insisting that the manufacturer 

 must cut his prices, the manufacturer was persistently 

 asking on what basis he might be expected to make fur- 

 ther reduction. It was quite customary for the buyer 

 then to reply that the price of lumber, glass and other 

 raw^ material had been decidedly reduced, and that the 

 fifteen per cent which the manufacture had cut from his 

 former price was not in proportion. 



The manufacturer customarily replied that in high grade 

 furniture lumber and other raw material constituted but 

 a small proportion of the cost of furniture, that labor 

 constitutes the bulk of that cost and asked if it was the 

 desire of the dealer that the manufacturer should make 

 a sharp cut in the wage schedule. Almost without ex- 

 ception the dealer loudly protested against a great cut in 



