First Furniture Market

A view inside what IT calls the "Bat Cave"

Well, I survived my first High Point market.  We, the IT group, moved into the "Bat Cave" at the showroom in High Point on October 4th and moved out on the last day of the market, Oct 18th.  It was a good experience.  Many issues came up or were discovered and resolved, making the applications better and stronger.  There were quite a few points of high stress with missing orders, likes and mismatched customers, and several nights past midnight to fix code or clean data.

I look forward to opportunities to improve processes and software that will make these markets less frantic, less hours and more smooth sailing.  I made good progress toward that goal a few weeks leading up to and during market, but there are plenty more opportunities for improvement.

As a guy that lives in or near High Point, and knew very little about the furniture market, the Market was a bit of an eye opener.  It's not so much just furniture, (chairs, dressers, couches, beds, etc), but furnishings in general.  Indoor and outdoor furnishings... fabric, lighting, silk or fake plants, decorations, through rugs and more.  And the Market isn't so much for the end consumer, as it is for the big furniture stores across the country and around the world, and for designers (room and furnishing designers) looking for what is new and up and coming for their clients.

One thing that caught my eye was the mechanics they can now put into dresser drawers... I guess any drawer really... gone are the days of pushing the dresser drawer closed to fast or loudly.  Watch this video... it may take two or 3 times to catch what I am showing you.

Below are some pictures and video of the showroom.