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IHA’s blog features informative posts written to keep the housewares industry educated and informed about key strategic issues and IHA member services.

IHA Working with the AAP Coalition to Provide Border Adjustment Tax Information

The International Housewares Association, representing the more than 1,700 housewares suppliers around the globe, is working with the Americans for Affordable Products (AAP), a growing coalition of more than 100 businesses and trade associations that represents millions of American jobs, to provide information on the Border Adjustment Tax or BAT. AAP is running a national…

Discovering Design: Meet Design Trifecta

Get acquainted with the people behind Design Trifecta and other companies with stylish products that will appear at the 2017 International Home + Housewares Show in Discover Design. We are speaking today with Sara Leggett, co-founder of San Francisco-based Design Trifecta, makers of the unique 360 Knife Block. Sara, where do you find inspiration when designing new…

Discovering Design: Meet Maia Ming Designs / Big Arrow Ceramics

Get acquainted with the people behind Maia Ming Designs / Big Arrow Ceramics and the other companies offering stylish products that will appear at the 2017 International Home + Housewares Show in Discover Design. Based in Barcelona, Spain, designer Maia Ming Fong returns to the International Home + Housewares Show to present her latest elegant tableware that appeal to…

Discovering Design: Meet Kela

Get acquainted with the people behind KELA and other companies offering stylish products that will appear at the 2017 International Home + Housewares Show in Discover Design. Today we are speaking with Gabriele Heib, head of international sales and Kurt Lang, co-owner and managing director of KELA. Keck & Lang GmbH was founded in 1903 and can look back on a long…

Healthy Living Begins at Home

IHA chats with Chris Bissig, Manager, Concept and Brand Development at GE Appliances in Louisville, Kentucky to get a preview of his upcoming Healthy Living Begins at Home presentation at the 2017 International Home + Housewares Show. The Innovation Theater will feature 21 presentations over four days covering topics ranging from new product development to the smart home. Chris…

Making Old New Again

Isn’t it remarkable how the past is always with us? How objects, textures and things that were part of that past still surround us, but rather than haunt, they offer a feeling of comfort, security and warmth. Not many of us live in homes or apartments with exposed walls of aged bricks, nor do we walk on floors covered with ancient timber, yet when we enter a shop or café or bar…

Trends: Gift Giving – It’s the Thought That Counts

From wedding registries to gift baskets, gifting gives back to kitchenware and housewares retailers all year long. The tradition of giving other people presents drives sales during the all-important fourth quarter and retailers spend their year plotting a strategy to stock and merchandise the products that their customers will want to give to others. But what makes a good…

Stats: Older Customers are Happier Customers. In Some States.

Although much ado is made about the millennial generation’s potential influence on retail, Americans above the age of 55 are a key consumer group to retailers. The Baby Boomers have the money and many have the leisure time to get involved with hobbies, like taking cooking classes, which might lead them to buy new cookware, or DIY classes that might lead them to pick up a new…

Innovation Theater Lineup at 2017 International Home + Housewares Show

The purchasing desires and habits of Boomers, Millennials and GenXers and the differences in how and why men and women shop for home goods are some of the topics trend analysts will address during sessions in the Innovation Theater at the 2017 International Home + Housewares Show, March 18 - 21 at Chicago’s McCormick Place complex. Four programs outlining age and gender…