Posted 4/26/2010 - 11:54:27 AM
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What are these?
The New York Tabletop Market confirmed the housewares-wide optimism is set in stoneware, if you will.
Proposals for meaningful orders during the market were well received by retailers hungry for new goods. Still, the fragility of a tabletop recovery— of an even broader housewares rally, actually— was not lost in all the enthusiasm.
Rising demand has brought to the surface new hurdles for everyone looking to refill the pipeline. Many at the market predicted back-half shortages in select tableware and kitchenware classifications, such as resurgent reactive-glaze dinnerware and products made from price-volatile raw materials such as stainless steel, aluminum and resin.
Massive factory attrition in China has narrowed the resource pool for many high-volume housewares. The quest for competitive new manufacturing hubs is a a vital long-term development. But it doesn’t solve the critical supply-chain condition facing the industry now.
Throw in extended factory lead times and looming container shortages from the Far East and the probability of chasing goods this summer and fall is high in some categories, threatening to undermine what many hope to be a breakthrough second half for the retail market. Retailers and vendors wise and deft enough to make it this far need to stay alert, swift and decisive to seize control of their supply resources quickly— or risk being locked out.
Housewares marketers that couldn’t rid themselves of manufacturing assets fast enough 15 years ago now see the security of holding stronger stakes in their production resources.
A major dinnerware importer explained in New York that his company locked up the capacity of the only two remaining Chinese manufacturers that specialize in a specific process through 2011. That’s right. 2011.
It’s not just an import issue. In our own backyard, Fiesta dinnerware potter Homer Laughlin China recently acquired neighboring Hall China, a move that in part secures an important supplier of key Fiesta accessories to Homer Laughlin.
That suppliers still shoulder much of the inventory burden for retailers insisting on just-in-time delivery is not surprising. Nor should anybody be surprised delivery timetables are in flux.
A tabletop buyer at the New York market, seeking shipment of a new collection in August, was shocked to learn the products couldn’t land until January of 2011 at the earliest. Previously, any number of alternate suppliers would line up to say “yes” to retailers whenever somebody else said “no.” Retailers can’t count on that anymore. They might have little choice in some situations but to accept the new supply rules by committing earlier— or they, too, could be locked out when they need goods the most.
Despite all the growth signs, precisely predicting the surge in consumer demand at this stage of the retail turnaround effort is a crapshoot. Even so, housewares marketers and retailers can mitigate disappointing and potentially damaging surprises with relentless due diligence on the many variables impacting the supply chain and fast action to take control of it.
All that optimism would be a terrible thing to waste.
