Opening Day, Las Vegas Market: Buyers feel energized, ready to shop

"This is an easy market for us to come to and it’s always exciting and lively. It’s probably my favorite market. Home accessories are our primary focus. We carry a little furniture but try to keep it to accent pieces. This is my third year in business and we opened our second store in November, which was a little scary with the economy the way it is, but we have no regrets. The second store is in a busier retail area to help advertise my first store, which is larger. Florals are also huge – we do a lot in-house, dried and silk custom arrangements and arrangements for the store. Our customers tend to favor more natural colors — ambers and browns. We didn’t bring a shopping list but one of the things we’re looking for is great art and wall decor. Also, something fresh that nobody else is going to have to differentiate ourselves from our competition." – Terri and Molly Mancuso, KC Surroundings, Kansas City, Missouri


"We’re a design company, I’m here looking for ideas, new creations, mostly to find out what’s new and what’s available. I came to the Vegas market once before, last year. My style is contemporary… just saw some very nice leather furniture. Business could be better, but there are still some new things, some new ideas we want to explore." – Nancy & Jean Mario Brudent, Gayla Creations, El Paso, Texas 

"This is my third time in Las Vegas. I’m a designer/retailer, in business since 2005. I do everything; model homes for builders and high-end residential. This time around I’m looking for brighter colors. I’m also keeping my eye out for lodge living for a new construction house in South Dakota. It’s a new style for me and I’m excited about it. Also, eco-friendly and organic things. Business is good right now." – Tara Gruber, Interiors by TGI, Itasca, Illinois

"We are a full-service interior design company and we carry everything – tabletop, area rugs, wall art, furniture, lighting. We opened in February 2004, so we’re wrapping up our fifth year. A lot of our clients are asking for good price points and things that are environmentally friendly. Living in the Pacific Northwest, we’re very aware of our natural surroundings and how we relate to them, so I think if anyone is going to be a leader in that area it should be us. Our retail sales have definitely slowed but we look at it as an opportunity to think about how we should refocus what we’re doing: How do we jazz up our vignettes to make them more appealing? How do we promote special-order items? Maybe we only bring in one or two pieces on the floor but then we have the catalogs open or we pull pages out of the catalog and say, ‘You can also special order this’ so it feels more special, like one-of-a-kind items. I also think people are taking longer to make their decisions and when they do, they want it to be a little more unique to them vs. something that looks mass-produced." –Dawn Wilkinson, Six Walls, Mercer Island, Washington

"This is our first trip to Vegas. We just got started so it’s hard (to compare to the other markets) but we are surprised at how similar it is in layout to the IHFC in High Point. I’m also hoping to find some smaller vendors like those you see in the Market Square suites. It’s always fun to visit Las Vegas … and fun to see a new market. We can get a little jump-start on the buying and see some new things, maybe find some new vendors that aren’t on the East Coast as much. The energy is good here, it’s crowded, the people look happy and they look like they’re buying. That feels good. We are shopping for tables. We need coffee tables, interesting console tables, and we’ve been selling the same dining room tables for awhile so we need something new. We don’t have any dining room chairs. We’re sold out of a lot of stuff all of a sudden. Business is good, we just opened our fourth store. The summer wasn’t so great, but our Labor Day sale was much better than expected and we just had a kind of spurt and sold a lot of things, so it’s fun to come here and have some money to spend." – Kathy Walsh and Trip Rothschild, Homeward Bound, New Milford, Connecticut

"I’ve been independent for six years but I’ve worked in the furniture store business for 36 years. This is my first time at the Las Vegas Market. I got in yesterday and am still just absorbing it all. We just went down to Beacon Hill and Robert Allen. There’s so much more to see than some of the other shows we’ve been to. I’m looking for accessories. I just finished a Louis XV French project and prior to that a contemporary high-rise, so it’s just whatever the customers’ needs are. Business for me is a little quiet, but I’m still here shopping." – Sharon Titus, Titus by Design, Portland, Oregon