Current trends in the furniture industry are to the modern designer end.

Ardi Joanda, the boss of furniture retailer Da Vinci Furniture, says that the current trend in Indonesian furniture sales is to achieve a synergy between designer fashion labels such as Arnold Palmer, Ralph Lauren, Nautica, Liz Claiborne, and Armani, and home and interior furniture design.

Ardi says that Indonesian furniture retailers are following the lead of American stores, as well as their Italian and Spanish counterparts, buffeted by years of cheap Chinese imports, who have had to look at things in a new way and have decided to combine aspects of the fashion industry into their furniture designs.

Associating the names of great fashion houses with furniture products increases sales and leads to improvements in quality, and better prices, says Ardi, who owns the sales and import licenses in Indonesia for the brands Nautica, Liz Claiborne, Arnold Palmer and the Walt Disney Signature collection.

We import various types of furniture like beds, bookcases, sofas, desks, and others, directly from the United States.

The Indonesian furniture industry is in a similarly weak position vis-a-vis Chinese competition and has experienced steady decline over the last decade, (Indonesian Furniture Exports, 1st May 2006, and Jepara Furniture Exports, 1st September 2006) not only in exports but also domestic sales. If Indonesian manufacturers are to survive and prosper they will likely need to heed such trends, being seemingly unable to compete with China and Vietnam at the lower end of the market, they may have to look to the upper end. Whether they are fully capable of doing this remains in some doubt.