All Artwork ©SEPS
March Continues to Show Promise
The US Census Bureau released February retail sales results last week. Overall retail sales to date for 2016 reflect a decrease of .01%. February 2016 showed a increase of 3.1% over February 2015. The winners so far for the first two months of 2016 were furniture and home furnishings posting a 3.8% increase and building centers and garden stores with a 10.3% increase. Sporting goods, hobby and books posted a 7.9% increase and department stores came in down 2.2%.
We attended the International Housewares show in Chicago and everyone we spoke with seemed very pleased with the traffic and attitude of the buyers. Consolidations at retail have affected the traffic at this show more than most, resulting in fewer buyers controlling more retail doors. One of our licensees mentioned that everyone at the show is waiting for the same buyers!
We had several meetings and with existing as well as potentially new licensees.
Lifetime Brands will be adding additional skus featuring our artwork to their Mug Program.
They are also introducing an open-stock bowl program which we will be a part of moving forward. We also met with Tabletops Unlimited and they just shipped Sears one of our collections. We are anxious to see it at retail and hear the sell through results. We are busy working on new designs for their consideration.
We also met with our new licensee American Tumbler who introduced several new designs from our archive. They were very pleased with the reaction and we are anxious to hear where they are able to get placement at retail.
We are currently following up with several other companies the expressed interest in our content and we will keep you informed as these develop
The Kim Parker Collection was expanded by Lifetime at this show. The dinnerware was expanded to 12 collections including a few new pieces. They also expanded her designs to serve-ware, pepper mills and melamine for casual and outdoor use. The line extensions looked great and there was a high interest level from retailers.
Overall, we felt the show was good and the attitude of the manufacture's was positive.
We have begun preparing for the Licensing Show in June. We will be exhibiting in the same spot and will be contacting many of you for appointments in the near future.
In the meantime, if we can help you with any content challenges.please let us know.
We look forward to seeing and speaking to you soon.
Best,
Mike Waldner | Director of Licensing
1100 Waterway Boulevard | Indianapolis , IN 46202
phone (317) 489- 6973 | mwaldner@curtislicensing.com
Curtis Licensing | The Saturday Evening Post
