January 2006 Market Pulse

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“Our business was up considerably last year, so we are pretty encouraged about 2006. Retail remodeling, for instance, is doing very well in this market. Therefore, we are planning to launch some new advertising campaigns in 2006 and a lot of it is directed exclusively at the remodeling and retail market. We are seeing more people spending money, buying better products and upgrading things. Therefore, we are definitely going to be more aggressive this year. We are also almost finished remodeling our showroom and we should have that pretty much wrapped up before K/BIS. Last year, we had more of a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude. We started feeling positive about it midway through 2005, so we’ve become more upbeat about the market.”

Don Cochran, President
Warehouse Cabinets
Brecksville, OH

“I do not abide by statistics that say whether the economy is improving or not. It’s not immediately reflected in how my business is doing. My clients don’t seem to change their decisions much, either. Over the years, my clients have tended to be pretty consistent with the types of projects and the budgets they were doing. As an independent designer, I don’t have a showroom or overhead that I have to be terribly worried about. Overall, I tend to play things pretty conservatively, especially because the Chicago market has been going through a boom in terms of real estate [which may or may not last].”

Rebekah Zaveloff, CKD, Principal,
KitchenLab
Chicago, IL

“We have already seen a surge in the economy and we certainly feel that it will impact the way that we deal with our clientele. For example, we have gotten much busier because there is more money in the economy and we have to figure out how to manage our workflow better. Specifically, I think it will impact how we communicate with our architects and builders – especially when it comes to understanding the scope of the work and things like time frames and scheduling. I wrote a letter to an architect just yesterday asking how we can better work our system out and manage our time better. Our approach has been prompted by the amount of business and leads that we have begun to receive. This is definitely a departure from our approach in previous years because now we are initiating conversations with people and trying to work out time frames. A lot of times in the past, we would work on projects that were half a year out. But now, if a client comes in and wants a kitchen by Christmas, it will absolutely affect how we prioritize things. We have been told by clients that we are pretty efficient, but I always think there is room for improvement.”

Barbara Bell, Interior Designer
Eastern Kitchens and Baths
Broomall, PA

“I think that improvements in the economy will help us with the interest rates, especially if they remain low. The other thing is that people will have more access to money as well, which means that more projects will be done. The work force, especially here in Michigan, has to be increased, if that happens. We are taking our time to make changes, although we have just expanded our showroom a bit. The most important thing for us is to simply ‘go with the flow,’ particularly because the trends that we see so often, such as what is seen in magazines, are what set the pace for people as they move forward.”

John DeGiulio, General Manager
DeGiulio Industries
Dearborn, MI

“I would say that my price points are at a threshold that hits the income of the consumers in this area, so I do not anticipate making any changes.