The challenge, states the industry representative, was to teach members to respond to market demands, considering the quality and formats of furniture that are in demand, up to the presentation of the products.
IKEA opened its online store in October 2020 and in April last year it cut the ribbon for the first store in the country, in Mexico City. The Swedish company, which is run by Malcolm Pruys in Mexico, is preparing to inaugurate its second unit in Puebla and, since its arrival in the country, has sought to add local suppliers that are supportive in maintaining the stock of products and, at the same time, allow offering better costs to buyers.
Roberto Quiñones, coordinator of Expo Mueble Internacional, points out that representatives of the company in 2019 approached the producers to add them to their chain, however, for Mexicans, becoming a multinational supplier means making changes in their production mechanisms.“ A team of two people always goes, they take their catalogs and invite us and they don’t stop being there”, he points out.
Until now, there is a company in Jalisco that has joined as a supplier of mattresses for the United States and Canadian markets, although the organization is not aware of other similar cases.
“We have a format and a way of producing, when you want to work with IKEA you can maintain your same format on the production lines with different characteristics of forms of assembly, of packaging. As an entrepreneur, anyone can be your supplier, but you have to think of an alternative to the normal mode of production”, adds Calderón.
With an eye on exports
If there is a market that gives a boost to the Mexican furniture industry, it is exports and, to guarantee this growth, Afamjal is promoting the creation of a certificate of origin with a variant: that it considers the percentage of supplies that come from the United States and Canada, such as wood and fabrics.
Calderón affirms that, as part of the beginning of this request, the industry has already initiated contacts with the companies that supply the raw material that are outside of Mexico, so that the regional content is considered, within the framework of the T-MEC. “Normally, to have a certificate of origin for a Mexican product, it has to have 50% national product, the other percentage can be considered an import, and we want our product to come out with its certificate of origin with the inputs from the three countries and that we have the right to the certificate of origin”, he maintains.