Escorts Help Find High Point’s Best

Shoppers searching for bargain-priced furniture here can hire professional guides to lead them through the city’s maze of warehouses and retail stores.

High Point, just a few minutes outside Greensboro, is also known as Furnitureland USA and annually attracts about 75,000 people who come just to buy furniture, according to Gary Smith, executive director of the city’s convention and visitor’s bureau.

Though shoppers find many wholesale furniture showrooms that sell only to “the trade,” consumers are welcome at about 60 retail outlets, ranging from bare-bones warehouses stocking mainly samples and discontinued items to full-service stores with fully-decorated model rooms.

All this can add up to a great buy, or to great confusion.

Fortunately for weary shoppers, several new ventures provide escorts who know the ropes. While the tours differ somewhat, each will custom-tailor an itinerary to the client’s wishes and will provide entree into a few of the showrooms normally open only to retailers and decorators.

Gail Humphrey, owner of Furniture Safari, offers a two-day shopping tour of up to 10 outlets for up to four people at a time. Offered on Fridays and Saturdays, the tour costs $250 a person and includes lunch, snacks and local transportation by van.

On Fridays, the group visits several different types of outlets for an overview. The next day they get down to serious buying, either returning to places visited the day before or moving on to new stores.

Priscilla Vickrey, owner of Interiors by Priscilla and a flight attendant based in Burlington, N.C., escorts clients to selected wholesale showrooms in High Point, including high-end ones at Market Square and Hamilton Square.

Vickrey charges $125 per day for the tour, local transportation, lunch and a ride to and from the Greensboro airport.

Before the client arrives, she discusses what they want and makes showroom appointments based on individual needs. Clients purchase items through her for 10% above the wholesale price. To keep things manageable, she suggests no more than three go together on a tour.

Shopping guide Chris Morris charges $25 an hour or $200 for an eight-hour day plus 10% of purchases.

For those who prefer to go it alone, free help is available from the convention and visitors bureau, which stocks free copies of the “Central North Carolina Home Furnishings Guide” from Carolina Publications Inc. The 64-page booklet includes maps and advertisements for about 30 retail outlets. Because some advertisements list the furniture brands carried, the guide can be used to plan an itinerary.

The visitors bureau also carries free brochures published by some stores, maintains a list of all the area retailers and will provide a free map and directions.

The bureau also will share information about any sales. These occur especially right before and after wholesale furniture markets in April and October.

Is it worth it to come to High Point to buy furniture? Retailers claim shoppers save at least 40%. Those who find a decent floor sample or discontinued item may save more, according to Humphrey.

Delivery will cost extra, depending on distance and weight. To ship a typical 300-pound sofa to Atlanta, for example, would cost about $100, one retailer said.

“Shopping in High Point is not necessarily for everyone,” Humphrey says. “Unless you are actually ready to buy furniture, it really doesn’t make sense to come.”

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Furniture Safari: (800) 883-9256.

Priscilla Vickrey: (800) 303-3326

Chris Morris: (910) 993-7312.

High Point Convention and Visitors Bureau, 300 S. Main St., is open Monday through Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

For a High Point directory write: High Point Convention and Visitors Bureau, P.O. Box 2273, High Point, NC 27261.