Post by TrapperRon on Oct 5, 2012 21:20:36 GMT -6
www.nafa.ca/9806
Wild Fur Season Update
As we head into the Fall, I would like to brief you on the world of fur.
The retail season is just starting in China and first reports appear to be positive. Russia is finding it more difficult, most likely due to both the political and economic conditions in that country. However, Russia bought less last year in both skins and garments, which reflected the Russian fur trade’s expectation for this upcoming retail season. Hopefully this means that their inventories are balanced. For both markets, the most important factor will be, of course, a normal or cold winter.
The European debt crisis and the Western economies seem to have little affect so far on the demand for fur. Since our May sale, mink sales have been firm to our May levels and last year’s mink crop has now been sold 100%. Just recently, NAFA was able to sell to China all of the unsold otters at price levels that exceeded the prices that were offered by the buyers during our May auction, so holding these goods definitely paid off for you. We are selling muskrats to China, again at higher prices than were offered during May, which will now finish this season on a strong tone. An account sale will be produced for all of the sold goods before the end of October, which is NAFA’s fiscal year end, and will be mailed to you the first week of November.
NAFA has been very active in the international markets and a team of senior management, consisting of Diane Benedetti, Senior Vice-President Marketing, Gregg Dolinsky, Senior Vice-President North American Operations, Bobby Poulios, Vice-President Buyer Relations and I just completed a promotional tour in Kastoria. As part of a Studio NAFA Outreach project co-sponsored by the Wild Fur Shipper’s Council, Diane co-ordinated a workshop that brought Maria Antoinetta D’Errico and Mauro Campani of Studio Designer & Marketing of Empoli, Italy to Kastoria. Their presentation focused on the collection of NAFA Northern Raccoon that Maria designed for the Northern Lights project. The many designers and technicians in attendance were taken step by step from the concept of design to choosing materials, creating patterns and final production of the garments.
Your promotional team will continue with their fall program in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Istanbul, Turkey and Moscow, as well as other important Russian cities. In China, Oscar Carbonell, Manager, Private Treaty Sales will lead several workshops this month to show Chinese manufacturers and buyers the NAFA assortment and explain in detail the system we use. He will be concentrating
on raccoon and beaver. As part of the workshops, we will show our customers new dressing techniques, new dressing colours and samples of the latest accessories and fashions for which these skins can be used.
To the Chinese manufacturer it is important that we have a large quantity of skins that are of the same size, same grade, same colour and same clarity and that we can repeat our February assortment in a similar way in May. We are in constant dialogue with our buyers so that we can monitor and modify our assortments if needed, but the most important aspect to the trade and ourselves is the integrity of our assortment. You have to remember that we take a show lot of 15 to 25 skins which represents a string consisting of as many as 5,000 to 10,000 skins. Being the largest wild fur seller in the world truly helps us give our buyers the maximum quantities possible in any size or grade.
An updated market forecast will be posted on our website at the end of October.
Herman Jansen
Managing Director
Wild Fur Season Update
As we head into the Fall, I would like to brief you on the world of fur.
The retail season is just starting in China and first reports appear to be positive. Russia is finding it more difficult, most likely due to both the political and economic conditions in that country. However, Russia bought less last year in both skins and garments, which reflected the Russian fur trade’s expectation for this upcoming retail season. Hopefully this means that their inventories are balanced. For both markets, the most important factor will be, of course, a normal or cold winter.
The European debt crisis and the Western economies seem to have little affect so far on the demand for fur. Since our May sale, mink sales have been firm to our May levels and last year’s mink crop has now been sold 100%. Just recently, NAFA was able to sell to China all of the unsold otters at price levels that exceeded the prices that were offered by the buyers during our May auction, so holding these goods definitely paid off for you. We are selling muskrats to China, again at higher prices than were offered during May, which will now finish this season on a strong tone. An account sale will be produced for all of the sold goods before the end of October, which is NAFA’s fiscal year end, and will be mailed to you the first week of November.
NAFA has been very active in the international markets and a team of senior management, consisting of Diane Benedetti, Senior Vice-President Marketing, Gregg Dolinsky, Senior Vice-President North American Operations, Bobby Poulios, Vice-President Buyer Relations and I just completed a promotional tour in Kastoria. As part of a Studio NAFA Outreach project co-sponsored by the Wild Fur Shipper’s Council, Diane co-ordinated a workshop that brought Maria Antoinetta D’Errico and Mauro Campani of Studio Designer & Marketing of Empoli, Italy to Kastoria. Their presentation focused on the collection of NAFA Northern Raccoon that Maria designed for the Northern Lights project. The many designers and technicians in attendance were taken step by step from the concept of design to choosing materials, creating patterns and final production of the garments.
Your promotional team will continue with their fall program in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Istanbul, Turkey and Moscow, as well as other important Russian cities. In China, Oscar Carbonell, Manager, Private Treaty Sales will lead several workshops this month to show Chinese manufacturers and buyers the NAFA assortment and explain in detail the system we use. He will be concentrating
on raccoon and beaver. As part of the workshops, we will show our customers new dressing techniques, new dressing colours and samples of the latest accessories and fashions for which these skins can be used.
To the Chinese manufacturer it is important that we have a large quantity of skins that are of the same size, same grade, same colour and same clarity and that we can repeat our February assortment in a similar way in May. We are in constant dialogue with our buyers so that we can monitor and modify our assortments if needed, but the most important aspect to the trade and ourselves is the integrity of our assortment. You have to remember that we take a show lot of 15 to 25 skins which represents a string consisting of as many as 5,000 to 10,000 skins. Being the largest wild fur seller in the world truly helps us give our buyers the maximum quantities possible in any size or grade.
An updated market forecast will be posted on our website at the end of October.
Herman Jansen
Managing Director