Furniture First Buying Group announced that it has finalized its plans to hold its Annual Symposium in Greensboro, NC, Friday, September 10 – Sunday, September 12, 2010. The event will be held at the Greensboro Airport Embassy Suites. Hotel rooms for the Membership and a cocktail party and dinner on Sunday night are sponsored by the High Point Pre Market Sponsors. Two days of Pre-Market shopping will immediately follow the Symposium on Monday, September 14 and Tuesday, September 15, 2010.
• 123 Furniture First Members attending
• 65 Supplier Partners attending
• 72 Golfers
• Approximately 85 Pre-Market shoppers
Symposium events kick off with an All-Industry Golf Tournament at the Grandover Golf Club, featuring prizes, free golf for Members and networking opportunities with key manufacturer executives. On Saturday and Sunday a variety of general sessions and seminars will be presented by industry professionals. This year’s theme, “Develop Your Powers: Transform into a Retail Superhero,” will focus on harnessing the power of traffic-driving mattress advertising and promotions, signage strategies, anticipating consumer trends, how to expand market share, effective use of private labeling, using operations and warehouse software to improve productivity and produce cost savings, and selling more top of bed products that increase mattress sales at the same time.
In addition to these presentations, Furniture First staff will host a “Why Partner with Furniture First?” session for Supplier Partners to review the advantages of working with the buying group.
A “Best Ideas” networking session and “Best Sellers Exchange” will be held for Furniture First Members to share successful marketing and operations tactics which have impacted their businesses in the past year.
Industry speakers will include: James Dion, Dionco; Eugene Alletto, GuardMaster; Bob George and Tom Zollar, Impact Consulting; Steven McLendon and Dan Standering, MicroD, Inc.; Ed Borowsky, Monarch Advertising; John McCloskey, Profitability Consulting Group; Rick Segel, Rick Segel & Associates; and Martin Roberts, Martin Roberts Design. Sponsors for the event include:
• A.R.T
• Aspenhome
• Bassett Furniture
• Better Homes & Gardens by Serta
• Broyhill
• Classic Flame
• Coaster
• Comfort Solutions / King Koil
• Graphic Solutions
• Great River Trading Co.
• Guardsman
• Home Meridian
• Jackson Furniture / Catnapper
• Jaipur
• Jofran
• Julius M. Feinblum Real Estate
• Klaussner Furniture Industries
• Liberty Furniture
• Magnussen
• Protection 1st / Montage
• Pulaski
• Sealy Mattress Co.
• Serta International
• Simmons
• Southern Motion
• Steve Silver Co.
• Surya
• Tempur-Pedic
• Ultra Comfort
• Uttermost
• Wells Fargo Financial
Furniture First is a home furnishings and mattresses-only buying cooperative representing independent home furnishings retailers from medium-low to medium-high end quality products across the United States. If you would like more information about the organization or new membership information, please contact Bill Hartman, President, at 1-800-411-3477 ext. 123 or via email at BHartman@FurnitureFirst.com.