HIGH POINT — With 2025 underway and Las Vegas Market just around the corner, casual furniture manufacturers are gearing up for what they hope will be a busy outdoor season.
For Lloyd Flanders, which will debut a new showroom in Las Vegas this month, the winter season is an opportunity for retailers and designers alike to get familiar with its product ahead of the big casual shows later in the year.
Rolling out in Las Vegas
Lloyd Flanders Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Bryan Echols told Furniture Today that the company’s expanded presence in Las Vegas is part of a two-pronged strategy to boost sales and shore up its already strong business with the design trade.
“Our business has traditionally been a little slanted toward the East Coast, but we’ve always wanted to boost our presence West of the Rockies,” Echols said. “Andmore had a fantastic location for us (in Las Vegas) that can really help us establish there, along with really enhancing our design business even further. The space in the Las Vegas Design Center does both of those things.”
Echols emphasized that the new Vegas showroom will allow Lloyd Flanders to showcase its full collection to the design trade.
“We’re very excited about getting to show the breadth of our product to the design trade. This is our main drive going into Vegas,” he said. “Making sure people see with fresh eyes what you’re doing across the entire line is something that is always a challenge. Showrooms are a great way to do that because buyers can sample product, they can sit in it, and they can really get a look at it.”
Alongside the push into Las Vegas, Echols said Atlanta will remain the centerpiece of Lloyd Flanders’ market strategy for the foreseeable future.
“Atlanta is still the main driver for all of our market business,” he said. “We see our e-commerce customers there, including long-term customers that we have had for decades, as well as the furniture stores. We even see some design traffic there, and Andmore are taking steps to enhance the design business in the Atlanta Market.”
Echols added that the company’s current market strategy will not include showing in High Point, at least not in the near or medium-term.
“Our lease expired in High Point, and we didn’t have a good feel for exactly where we wanted to be, which location or building we wanted,” he explained. “Because High Point is so sprawling, location is extremely important, and we didn’t see anything that was fitting that bill right away, so we are currently not showing in High Point. As to what that means for the future, we’ll have to just see.”
A record of resilience
Although the full economic picture facing furniture businesses in 2025 is still somewhat murky, Echols believes that Lloyd Flanders is well-prepared to weather any potential headwinds.
“We’ve ridden the curve of the ups and the downs before,” he said. “I think the one uncertainty that we’re still waiting to see how it plays out is the possibility of additional tariffs. Lloyd Flanders is extremely well positioned for that because, while about half of our line is imported from overseas, we do have half of our production in the United States.”
Echols pointed to lessons learned during the pandemic as guides for navigating future challenges.
“We saw during COVID, when supply chains were strained, a surge in our business for domestic product and people looking again at our loom product that we make in the United States with fresh eyes,” he recalled.
“We really gained a lot of floor space, and we actually performed well. Along those same lines, we are already doing things in our factory to make sure our lead times stay down so that we can deliver for customers” in the event that new tariffs impact the business.
Echols believes that this track record of resilience puts Lloyd Flanders in a strong position heading into 2025.
“I’m extremely optimistic. On the consumer front, wages are still up, the job market is robust, even though inflation has taken a pretty big bite,” he observed. “I do see that there’s still a lot of people out there doing things with their outdoor spaces.
“We’ve seen more people making a very, very big push into their outdoor spaces to make them look inviting. And I see that trend continuing in the new year, both on the residential and commercial side.”
See also:
- Lloyd Flanders customer service rep garners ICFA honor
- Lloyd Flanders keeps eye on lead times during market cycle
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