World Market Center betting on home accents to boost business

By Buck Wargo

Monday, Aug. 16, 2010 | 2 a.m.

It may not represent a major step toward diversifying Nevada’s economy, but the World Market Center, the permanent furniture trade show complex in downtown Las Vegas at the Spaghetti Bowl, is tweaking its strategy.

Rather than be known only as a furniture marketplace — which is suffering with the nation’s depressed housing market — the 5-year-old World Market Center is setting aside 100,000 square feet of sales floor to display home accents and gifts, niche industries that drive convention business in New York, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, Denver, Seattle and Los Angeles.

The World Market Center wants a piece of the action and thinks it can position itself as the Western hub for gift manufacturers and wholesalers who would lease space in the buildings, possibly triggering construction of a fourth building at the center.

For Las Vegas, it means thousands of retailers visiting here during semiannual trade shows to buy products for their stores.

The gift industry not only complements the furniture industry — with its candlesticks, picture frames, tabletop waterfalls and decorator pillows — but includes other items such as lawn pennants and seasonal door wreaths.

“That industry is less impacted than the furniture industry because the average ticket price is a lot less,” World Market Center CEO Bob Maricich said. “People are still buying presents for birthdays, holidays and occasions. That’s important to them.”

This year’s summer market held steady with last year’s registrations at 47,000, but was down from January’s show that attracted 50,000, Maricich said.

“We were incredibly optimistic in January and thought the worst was behind the furniture industry, which is directly affected by housing sales and starts and consumer confidence. Frankly, I was holding my breath with that,” Maricich said. “The furniture industry, like the economy, has double dipped. After a modest increase it has fallen back.”

That creates interest in the gift industry, a $300 billion-a-year operation compared with $80 billion for home furnishings, Maricich said.

Randy Spoor, a Henderson resident and president of the Gift Sales Managers Association, a trade association of 125 gift and home industry sales managers, said the addition of the gift show could boost attendance by 20,000 to 25,000 people per show.

“I think it’s an excellent idea, and I think necessary to have a West Coast hub for the gift industry,” Spoor said. “Las Vegas would be a natural location, and I think over time it will build and become that hub. It is a matter of the World Market Center marketing strongly to both exhibitors and retailers. If the exhibitors are here, the retailers will come, and vice versa.”

Slightly more than 80 percent of the showroom space that is spread out in three buildings of the World Market Center was occupied during the summer show, which is about the same as last year, Maricich said.

Some companies have gone out of business over the past year, and despite that, more than 94 percent of the leases in the first building that were up for renewal have been retained, Maricich said.

The first two buildings at the World Market Center were fully leased but the opening of the third building in 2008 as the recession hit has taken a toll.

The World Market Center owns 59 acres and has designs for a fourth building but there are no plans to pursue that in this environment, Maricich said. What could change that is the growth of the gift industry showcase.

“It is important on the West Coast to have a major gift center,” said Rick Contino, president of the Minnesota gift manufacturer Midwest-CBK. “Of the major permanent showrooms on the West Coast, we are putting our bets with Las Vegas because of the convenience of hotel rooms and cost of airline tickets.”

A version of this story appears in this week’s In Business Las Vegas, a sister publication of the Sun.