We have very ambitious goals. We plan to increase the share of presence in the market due to production optimization as a whole

About 40 % of the whole export of Russian furniture accounts for Kazakhstan. Germany and Belarus are also the big importers of the Russian produce with the equal percentage of supplies (11 %). The export volume amounted to 90.8 mln US dollars during the first four months of 2017. The experts of “Tsentrolak” association used these figures at the last furniture summit. On the one hand, the economic effect of such trade can not be referred to as a brilliant one, while on the other hand – better a small fish than an empty dish. In the post-crisis period the furniture business had to pull in its belt and lower expectations, and by far not every factory managed to recover after such a therapy. Many of them left the industrial arena, though there were those, who not only recovered from economic shock, but even started to develop dynamically.

The editorial board of “Industriya Mebeli” magazine prepared information and interviewed the key market experts of how the climate of the domestic furniture industry had changed. Olga Diakonova, Manager of Sales Departmentof area of focus “Furniture” of MERLION company, was among the speakers.

“We have managed to attain growth amounting to 15 % with respect to a number of categories (speaking about a turnover in Q3 2016 and a similar period of 2017). It concerns, first of all, the growth in the category of chairs for children, gaming and low-cost segment of chairs for operators. It should be pointed out that we have also succeeded to preserve the share of presence in such an anything but simple region, as the Far East. We continue to cooperate quite closely with the non-core clients. Among the furniture companies, probably, we boast the widest presence of clients from such markets, as IT and white goods.

We still reckon that the greatest problem is an excessive conservatism of furniture manufacturers. The market responds awkwardly to innovations, matrix extension, unconventional designer’s solutions, changes of sales channels and new sales formats; the situation is anyway stable – it shall be changed, stirred, because it looks much like stagnation that always obstructs development.

We have very ambitious goals. We plan to increase the share of presence in the market due to production optimization as a whole. Clear and quick response to the market demands, individual approach to the needs of big partners and customers thereof, development of measures launched in 2017, which are aimed at the promotion and recognizability of trademark “Byurokrat” will also help us in this respect.