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Croscill imports eclipse $100M

Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 10/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Croscill

New York

Ceo: David Kahn

Principal businesses: bedding, bath, window treatment

"We started importing quite a while ago, and imports have come to be a big part of our business — and increasing," said David Kahn, ceo. "About 90 percent of our bath business is imported from the Far East and India. And 100 percent of the greige goods for sheeting is from Thailand. About 75 percent of our free-standing window treatments are from Korea, China, India and Turkey."

And imports are becoming even more important, added Kahn, as Croscill imports more labor-intensive fabricated textiles products, in addition to bath ceramics and fabrics. "This season we'll be doing more labor-intensive bedding from India and China."

Imports now account for more than a third of Croscill's more than $300 million in annual sales, and Kahn expects imports will continue to increase at a double-digit pace every year. "And it's not just the labor cost. Nobody in America does ceramics for the bath, and nobody here does the gorgeous fabrics you can get out of Korea."

Importing poses problems, Kahn acknowledges. "The more complex the cut-and-sew, the more difficult it is to get the quality you want. And color quality from one shipment to the next, and cut-and-sew quality from one shipment to the next can be an issue. It's getting easier, but it's still difficult. You really have to work at it."

But overall, said Kahn, "quality is not an issue. We're certainly not going over there for lower quality. Probably the best quality we get is from Korea, but the issue there is tariffs and labor."

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