Window of Opportunity Is Closing : Decorating: The prospects for mini-blinds, which dominated drapes and curtains in the market of the ‘80s, are dimming somewhat as softer treatments gain popularity.
The landscape is already littered with remnants of the go-go 1980s. BMW automobile sales cascaded as the German mark strengthened. Pasta salads became passe. Executive women are eschewing the navy-blue power suit.
Then there is the mini-blind.
The popularity of mini-blinds soared in the ‘80s. Mini-blind dealers joined video stores and fitness clubs among the hot new-business ventures of the decade.
Now, however, mini-blind sales are as flat as day-old Perrier. Home and business decorators are increasingly turning to other kinds of window coverings. The little louvers are beginning lose some of their luster.
For mini-blind suppliers, this has brought increasingly fierce competition and price-cutting. Specialty dealers are jostling with department stores and discounters. One company that several years ago was selling 44-by-44-inch mini-blinds for $72 now sells them for $18.
Manufacturers and retailers are trying to adjust to changing consumer tastes by expanding the variety of window coverings they sell. Consider Mr. Miniblind, a specialty retail chain that now advertises: “We’re not just mini-blinds anymore.” In fact, the chain’s owners say, mini-blinds account for only 22% of total sales.
“Mini-blinds came in and took over the market. They took a lot of market share from curtains and draperies,” said Donna Boyle Schwartz, home textiles editor for HFD, a New York-based trade publication. “Now consumers are getting tired of the hard, stark, contemporary looks of mini-blinds.”
Abby Menhenett, a Laguna Beach interior designer, said consumers are interested in warmer, textured looks. “People want a softer look. There is a trend away from the high-tech look.”
Besides, she added: “People are tired of dusting” mini-blinds.
Although there are signs that the market for them is weakening, mini-blinds have a long way to fall. Some $1.5 billion worth of the slinky slats were sold in 1990, about double the sales of curtains or drapes or any other kind of “window treatment.” Mini-blind sales were, however, no higher than in the previous year, whereas sales of pleated shades, wood blinds and other items offering a softer look increased.
“The industry as a whole, we believe, is flat,” said Wayne Campbell, planning and forecast manager for Levolor) Corp., a Sunnyvale company that claims to be the nation’s largest maker of mini-blinds.
The result, Campbell said, has been a cutthroat competition among retailers similar to the one the tire industry has seen in recent years. Nearly every advertisement, he said, calls attention to low prices.
The price-cutting is also pinching profits. “You have a lot of cheap mini-blinds flooding the market. A $7.99 mini-blind is not making money for anybody,” Schwartz said. Moreover, retailing giants such as Sears, Roebuck & Co. and J.C. Penney Co., and home-center stores such as HomeClub and Builders Emporium account for a large portion of the business.
Pat Murphy, a retail analyst for the accounting firm Ernst & Young in Costa Mesa, predicts a shakeout in the retail market. It will, he says, eventually be controlled by just a few large companies.
Nevertheless, some large Southern California mini-blind retail chains say they are going ahead with expansion plans. The Mr. Miniblind chain, based in Santa Ana Heights, continues to sell franchises with the goal of becoming “the McDonald’s of window coverings,” said Christina Huckins, who co-founded the company with her husband, Mark. The chain has 81 franchise stores in 13 states and projects sales this year of $40 million, double its revenue of two years ago.
Qwik Blinds, a 23-store chain based in Ontario, and 3 Day Blinds, a 110-outlet chain headquartered in Anaheim, also have expansion plans. 3 Day says it hopes to add 50 new stores.
Competition between those two rivals has been nasty at times.
The dispute became public recently when 3 Day bought space in The Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and in Pennysaver for an advertisement that showed the page of a book marked “Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Proceedings.” The headline read, “A Chapter of the Book Qwik Blinds Doesn’t Want You to Know About.” The ad copy told readers that Qwik Blinds had filed for bankruptcy and warned prospective customers: “Don’t fall victim to their problems.”
3 Day President Art Schumann said he bought the ad as a “public service” because the industry has been plagued by operators who suddenly go bankrupt, causing customers to lose money. “We are concerned about the industry,” Schumann said.
Qwik Blinds immediately cried foul. President David Blachley contends that he filed for personal bankruptcy after being away from the business, a proprietorship, for several months while he recovered from injuries received in a boating accident.
Said Blachley of the 3 Day ad: “I’m kind of happy about it. This shows that Qwik Blinds, the underdog, is now a force.”
The bad blood did not begin or end there. 3 Day has sued Blachley and Qwik Blinds in Orange County Superior Court, alleging unfair competition. The suit accuses Qwik Blinds of trying to bribe 3 Day employees and of attempting to videotape production operations to steal trade secrets. Blachley said the lawsuit is groundless.
3 Day has also tried to intervene in Blachley’s bankruptcy and has succeeded in, among other things, getting Blachley to concede in a declaration that he was convicted of receiving stolen property in the late 1970s and had operated two other window covering businesses that failed.
Still, despite the competition, mini-blinds are expected to be a fixture in the window covering industry for some time to come. Industry observers note that they are still the least-expensive alternative in many cases.
The mini-blind “still occupies a prominent position” in the market, said O.B. Kelley, a vice president for Hunter Douglas Inc., a New Jersey window coverings company. For privacy, light and ventilation, he said, often “nothing else will do.”
IS MINI-BLIND MANIA DEAD? After conquering the market for window coverings in the 1980s, sales of miniblinds were flat in 1990. Designers suggest that the miniblind craze is giving way to consumers’ growing preference for wood blinds, pleated shades and other window coverings. U.S. MINI-BLIND SALES, 1990
In millions of dollars
MINI-BLINDS: $1,500
VERTICAL BLINDS: $780
DRAPERIES: $762
CURTAINS: $724
PLEATED SHADES: $547
DRAPERY HARDWARE: $538
ROLLER SHADES: $190
WOOD BLINDS: $53
PERCENTAGE CHANGE, 1989-90 MINIBLINDS: 0% VERTICAL BLINDS: 0% PLEATED SHADES: +7.0% WOOD BLINDS: +3.9% DRAPERY HARDWARE: +2.1% CURTAINS: -4.5%
DRAPERIES: -5.0% ROLLER SHADES: -9.5%
