The future of market isn’t buildings; it’s people | Ray Allegrezza

2026.07.30

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For the better part of a century, the furniture industry has gathered in places like High Point, Chicago, Tupelo and, more recently, Las Vegas and Atlanta. Markets became the heartbeat of our business. They were where retailers discovered new products, manufacturers launched new collections, deals were struck over dinner and relationships were built one handshake at a time.

That formula served us remarkably well.

But every successful model eventually runs headlong into change, and today’s furniture market is no exception.

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Technology has quietly rewritten the rules of how business gets done. Retailers can preview entire collections months before Market. They can compare prices, inventory levels and specifications from their offices.

AI is beginning to analyze assortments, identify gaps in merchandising strategies and even suggest products based on demographic and sales data. Digital sourcing has made the world smaller, faster and more accessible than ever before.

If information alone were the reason Markets exist, we’d probably need a lot less of them.

But information has never really been the reason. Confidence has.

Furniture remains one of the few industries where you simply cannot buy intelligently without experiencing the product. You need to sit on the sofa. Open the drawers. Feel the fabric. Evaluate the tailoring. Judge the finish. Compare the quality that rarely shows up in a photograph or on a specification sheet.

Technology can help narrow the field. It can’t replace judgment; nor can it replace trust.

That’s the part of this business that often gets overlooked by people outside the industry. Home furnishings has always been a relationship business. The best retailers don’t merely buy products; they buy from people they know, people who stand behind what they sell, people who answer the phone when something goes wrong and people who understand that a partnership is measured over years, not purchase orders.

Ironically, as artificial intelligence becomes more capable, those human relationships may become even more valuable.

When everyone has access to the same information, trust becomes the competitive advantage.

That may be the future role of Market.

Not simply as a place to write orders, but as a place to validate decisions. A place where merchants confirm what AI suggested. Where designers test ideas against reality. Where manufacturers tell the stories behind their products instead of simply displaying them. Where conversations matter as much as collections.

Markets have never been static. They survived globalization, the rise of imports, the Great Recession, a pandemic and the explosive growth of e-commerce. Every challenge forced them to evolve rather than disappear.

The future will be no different.

The next generation of Markets may look different. Showrooms may become more flexible. Digital tools may become inseparable from the buying process. AI will almost certainly become part of every merchant’s toolkit.

But I have a hard time imagining an industry built on comfort, craftsmanship and design abandoning the simple act of bringing people together.

Because in the end, furniture is still touched before it’s trusted, and for all the perks of AI, people still do business with people.

That’s a truth no technology has managed to disrupt.