Branscome International Group | International furnishings trade development
The furnishings trade, from forest products to finished goods.
Furniture, textiles, and wood products cross borders through market centers, trade shows, and showroom floors — and through the agencies, associations, and capital that build them.
We have worked every side of that business
Branscome International Group develops international markets and trade platforms for the furnishings trade, from forest products to finished goods. We work with national trade agencies, industry associations, manufacturers, and the platforms where the trade transacts — having built and run those platforms ourselves.
Contact Us
Tim@BranscomeGroup.com
The problem
International furnishings programs fail for reasons that have nothing to do with the product.
A national pavilion gets built around what the agency wants to say rather than what buyers came to find. A manufacturer enters a market with a distributor agreement written for a domestic partner. A market center opens before anyone confirmed who would occupy it. A trade mission produces meetings and no orders, and nobody can explain the difference.
Each of these is a translation failure. The agency doesn't think like a buyer. The manufacturer doesn't know how a platform actually fills. The developer doesn't know what an exhibitor needs to justify the cost. The capital doesn't know either, and prices the risk accordingly.
We have sat in each of those seats. That's the whole value.
We helped write the old playbook
Most trade programs still run the same way they ran twenty years ago. Book the pavilion. Fill the booths. Count the meetings. File the report.
We know that program well. We helped build it.
It stopped working, for reasons that are easy to name:
Buyers no longer discover products at the show first.
They arrive with a shortlist built online weeks earlier. If your product data is incomplete, you were never on it — and no amount of booth space corrects that.
Sourcing relocated.
The map that made sense in 2015 doesn't describe where furniture is made in 2026, and programs built on the old map send people to the wrong markets.
Compliance became a market access question,
not a paperwork question. Traceability now determines whether product clears at all.
The cost of showing outran what smaller brands could carry
— which is why we spent years building alternatives to it.
We start from what the market is doing now. Not from what the program did last year.
The formats we build
The furnishings trade works beautifully for large manufacturers and poorly for everyone else. The barrier has never been quality. It's access — the cost of a showroom, the length of a lease, the distance to a buyer.
We have spent twenty-three years building the way around it.
The British Home, 2003 — a consortium of fifty British SME producers reaching US retailers and designers through a shared logistics, showroom, exhibition and distribution program. None of them could have afforded the market alone.
Las Vegas Market, 2005 — a challenger to a market calendar one city had held for a century, with a segmentation scheme that gave smaller exhibitors their own B2B communities in design, sustainable products, textiles and outdoor furnishings rather than losing them in a hall. Also the home of Living Green, the market's sustainable furnishings program.
Expo City - South Korea, 2014 — an experiential platform fusing physical showrooms with technology to give Western lifestyle brands a combined marketing and supply chain route into Asia, developed with Gensler, Gale International, Korean Airlines and Hyunjin Shipping across New York and Incheon.
Mill Collective, 2017 — a curated biannual showcase of sevent-five independent American studios across furniture, lighting, textiles, rugs and ceramics, exhibiting every season at High Point Market and later Round Top, with Meet the Maker programming and curatorial partnerships including the Black Artists + Designers Guild.
Plant Seven, 2018 — a 100,000 square foot innovation and cultural center in the 100-year-old Adams-Millis Hosiery Mill in High Point. Shared workspace, a Material ConneXion library, a design store curated by Dezeen, exhibition galleries and photo studios, funded by a $1.5 million State of North Carolina grant matched by private donors. Built so that makers who could never lease a showroom could still reach the trade.
Each one removed a different barrier: the cost of entry, then the geography, then the technology, then the curation, then access to space and equipment itself.
Where the trade is moving
Two forces are reshaping the furnishings trade, and both run straight through our work.
Sourcing is relocating.
Vietnam has overtaken China as the largest source of US furniture and home goods imports, with Mexico close behind, driven by stacked tariffs that have pushed effective rates on Chinese solid wood furniture well past 40%. India and Indonesia absorb more volume every quarter.
We have worked with the trade promotion agencies of the countries winning that shift.
Compliance is arriving.
The EU Deforestation Regulation applies to furniture and wood products from 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators, and mid-2027 for smaller ones. It requires plot-level geolocation and proof of deforestation-free origin, with penalties reaching 4% of EU turnover.
We have worked with the forestry bodies whose chain-of-custody systems answer that requirement.
What we do
We build government and association trade programs that produce orders rather than activity reports.
We take manufacturers and brands into new markets — with the distribution, pricing, and platform decisions made in the right order.
We develop and reposition trade platforms — market centers, showrooms, exhibitions — and confirm demand before capital commits.
We recruit the international side. Manufacturers, buyers, and delegations, in their language and on their economics.
We structure the capital. Underwriting logic and sponsor materials for the institutions that finance these assets.
Who we work with
National and regional trade agencies Governments promoting their furnishings industries abroad, recruiting inbound investment, or trying to make an existing program produce measurable trade.
Industry associations and clusters Sector bodies organizing collective export access — pavilions, delegations, shared showrooms, or a permanent international presence no single member could fund.
Manufacturers and brands Companies with something that should travel, deciding how, where, and through which channel.
Platform owners, operators, and investors Developers and capital partners evaluating, filling, or repositioning a trade platform asset.
Where we work
We work the corridors of the global furnishings trade — the places that manufacture and the places that buy.
Western Europe Southeast Asia South America North America
In each of these we have either represented a national industry, recruited manufacturers into a platform, or helped a government agency build a trade program.
Clients
NATIONAL AND REGIONAL TRADE AGENCIES
UK Trade & Investment · Italian Trade Commission ·
Apex-Brasil · VIETRADE · Indonesia Ministry of Trade Forestry Innovation Investment
INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS AND CLUSTERS
British Furniture Manufacturers · Sindmóveis, Brazil · Textirama, Belgium · Sustainable Forestry Initiative · High Point Chamber of Commerce
MANUFACTURERS AND BRANDS
Ashley Furniture Industries · Eichholtz · Maiori · Tropical Outdoor ·
PLATFORMS AND TECHNOLOGY
NeoCon · Amber Engine · Mood · eBusinessMedia · Expo City - South Korea · Las Vegas Market · ABS Technologies
CAPITAL AND DEVELOPMENT
Oak Tree Capital Management · Related Companies · Rock Ventures
Six national and regional trade agencies across four continents have engaged us to develop their furnishings industries abroad.
"Tim built international business platforms with government agencies and trade associations — he is very skilled and adept at identifying or creating mutual opportunities."
Robert Maricich — Founder and Executive Chairman, ANDMORE (formerly International Market Centers)
What they say
"They exceeded our expectations in helping develop a strategy and marketing plan which generated significant publicity, while also helping us build a sales team across the USA."
Jay van Galen Last — Commercial and Business Development Director, Eichholtz