From China to the Entire World

Furniture exhibition in Shanghai breaks record for foreign buyer count

By Michael Hart -- Tradeshow Week, 9/26/2005

Shanghai, China—On the opening day of Furniture China 2005, Rudi Eriksen was frantic.

"I've got clients flying in tomorrow, and I've got to find some lamps to show them," said the principal in PartnerChina, a Shanghai-based consulting firm that helps connect Chinese furniture manufacturers with foreign buyers, primarily those from Eriksen's native Denmark.

Foreign buyers looking for products for showrooms through-out the world are part of the reason the Shanghai furniture show has grown from 32,000 square feet in its inaugural edition 11 years ago to an estimated 2.2 million sq. ft. this year. Plus, with the opening of two new exhibit halls at the Shanghai New Intl. Exhibition Centre next year, the 2006 edition is likely to be at least 540,000 sq. ft. bigger.

"It's not all as easy as it looks, but once you've got the momentum, it gets easier," said Peter Sutton, president and CEO of CMP Asia, whose subsidiary, CMP Sinoexpo, produced the show in conjunction with the China Natl. Furniture Assn.

In the mid-1990s, when the show was still in its infancy, up to half its exhibitors were from overseas. The show followed a model that many Chinese tradeshows did at the time: Both foreign and domestic companies were anxious to sell products to a growing consumer economy.

While that is still the case in some sectors, Furniture China is an example of the new model of China selling to the rest of the world, rather than vice versa.

"By 2000, we recognized that the Chinese furniture industry was growing so fast that our market could not support the production capacity," said Wang Mingliang, vice president of the China Natl. Furniture Assn.

In 2003, the show attracted more than 3,000 foreign buyers. By the following year, the number of foreign buyers had doubled. According to pre-registration figures, this year's show featured 8,000 people from 150 countries (contributing to a total attendance of more than 60,000).

In 2004, the Chinese furniture industry generated $10 billion in revenue, according to the furniture association. As of this July, it had produced an estimated $7.7 billion in revenue.

"Overseas buyers know China is the No. 1 place for sourcing furniture," Wang said.

Even so, Furniture China may have taken on a life of its own beyond the Chinese furniture industry.

Jeremy Ruff, director of the North Carolina Furniture Trade Office, was in Shanghai Sept. 14–17 making plans to bring 10 to 40 furniture manufacturers from his state to the show next year. He will do so in conjunction with the Appalachian Regional Commission, a consortium of 12 state economic development agencies.

Ruff said the well-entrenched U.S. furniture industry has somewhat belatedly awoken to the fact that it must tackle its global competitors head on. If the buyers are going to Shanghai to look for products, then so must North Carolina's furniture makers go there in search of buyers.

"We've not done a very good job of presenting ourselves internationally," Ruff said. "Our effort is to get more of our manufacturers to understand what it takes to compete globally."

According to Ruff, the United States accounts for 27 percent of the world's furniture market, compared with 22 percent for developed Asia. Europe accounts for 36 percent, and Ruff already takes a group of North Carolina manufacturers to the annual imm Cologne in Germany.

American furniture suppliers cannot compete across the board with Chinese suppliers on price, Ruff said, but the international buyers who go to Furniture China are not necessarily looking for low-price products.

"This is a fashion business," he said. "You compete with design, with materials."

The Shanghai show isn't China's only large furniture exhibition. The Intl. Famous Furniture Exhibition Fair, known as 3F, typically attracts about 500 exhibitors to a 1.4 million sq. ft. exhibition twice a year at the Guangdong Modern Intl. Exhibition Center.

"That is a big show too," Eriksen said, "but the quality is a little higher here (at Shanghai)."