Early in October, 2006
Nisvet Nezic surveys his store and is almost happy with what he sees. Ancestre Custom Furniture is as charming a spot as a proud proprietor could ask for—it's filled with deluxe, hand-made furniture, handsomely arrayed on an ancient plank floor. Outside the window, the sidewalks that run along cobblestoned Water Street produce a constant blur of pedestrians, each seeming to enjoy the moment. Here they are in revitalized Gastown, in the surprisingly bright sunshine, in beautiful Vancouver, where the economy has never been better. For Nezic there is just one problem: None of these people are stepping into his store.
This is not what the 41-year-old imagined in the spring, when he borrowed $210,000 to open his shop. Back then, he saw an opportunity to expand his design and custom-manufacturing operation into a retail outlet. He knew what customers were paying at the two stores that sold his furniture, and he hated the way that "they made the money; I paid my bills." Working with bankers and consultants, he put together a business plan showing that it wouldn't take many sales to cover the cost of opening a storefront. And how hard could a few sales be in a city that was putting up thousands of new homes and condominiums at such a mad pace, each needing to be filled with fine custom furniture—the kind that Nezic could make like no one else in town?
What Nezic didn't figure on was a summer from hell, when walk-in traffic never walked in, and the little bit of advertising he could afford went unnoticed in newspapers or in little-known magazines that nobody seemed to open. An immigrant from war-torn Bosnia who spent seven months in a concentration camp and lost everything he'd ever owned, Nezic was beginning to worry that he'd have to start all over again.
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It's fall now, and Ancestre's bills are still getting paid—but Nezic isn't. "My business plan is messed up," he says. For a start, he didn't build in a six-month financial cushion in case of little or no sales. Staring down at a black walnut table that took 35 hours to build, he concedes that "something has to happen."
And something is happening. Shirin Ghaeni, one of Nezic's three employees, has worked at other furniture stores, and one of the owners regularly attended Vancouver's big fall Home and Interior Design Show, produced by DMG World Media. On Ghaeni's suggestion, Nezic signed up as an exhibitor at the four-day show. For $4,000, he will get a 20-foot by 20-foot corner booth at BC Place; at his own cost, he will also provide a dining room table and chairs as a door prize, which he hopes will generate additional exposure and advertising support. Of course, the $4,000 is only a start, because Nezic will have to build and staff the booth, which will cost at least $4,000 more. Still, with a show that attracts up to 50,000 people, the payoff could be huge. "I want to meet designers and architects who need the kind of furniture I can make," Nezic says. "I hope there will be a couple hundred of my potential customers."
It doesn't seem like a lot to ask.
Over at Livingspace Interiors, on the same sunny day in early October, Ross Bonetti is also beginning to think about the home show. His reality and Nezic's are very different. The son of an appliance store owner, the 47-year-old opened Livingspace in 1988 and moved to his current 11,000-square-foot digs in 2001. The sleek European furniture he specializes in is back in fashion, and although competition from cheap Asian knockoffs is a worry, business has never been better. His revenue has gone up 20% in each of the past two years, even though his shop is situated in an unfashionable part of East Vancouver, where shoppers need to make a point of seeking him out.
Still, Bonetti is wondering if the home show isn't too much of a stretch. He hadn't considered this event even remotely appropriate for him until 2004, when Trish Almeida was promoted to show manager and began to shake things up, bringing in hip designer Karim Rashid and an array of TV and magazine personalities. Livingspace signed on, buying a booth the first year, then coming back in 2005 as a non-paying feature participant with a furnished display, but no booth. This year, he invested $5,000 in renting a booth, and he was also invited to outfit one of the stylish rooms the show is calling "design pods." There will also be the innovative All-Terrain Cabin from the avant-garde BARK collective and several smaller features, providing exposure to local and Canadian designers and their cutting-edge work. With the fad for celebrities waning, Almeida is spending more of her budget on design-oriented installations that appeal to Livingspace's smart crowd. What makes it even better for Bonetti is that Almeida believes his 20-foot by 20-foot booth on a high-traffic crossroads at the very centre of the floor will be a credit to the show.
