TOV Furniture closes High Point plant and returns production to Asia

Customs officials assessed $135,000 for 17 Vietnam shipments

TOV Furniture co-founder Bruce Krinsky closed a factory in High Point, North Carolina, after 10 months, cutting about 45 jobs and returning production to Asia. Krinsky said he lost $3 million trying to run the plant, where high labor costs and lower efficiency made TOV’s $1,500 sofa unprofitable.

Krinsky built TOV around $900 sofas aimed at shoppers seeking an upgrade from IKEA without splurging at Crate & Barrel. The company he founded with his wife, Chaya, generated more than $100 million a year, sold directly online and supplied hotels, restaurants and retailers such as Costco. After leaving commercial real estate work in 2009, Krinsky bought a website selling furniture made by other companies. He later developed TOV’s line after tracking a Chinese manufacturer through a U.S. government database and visiting a factory in Shanghai.

By 2018, TOV had seven suppliers in China. When the first Trump administration imposed a 25% tariff on some Chinese furniture, Krinsky said he negotiated for suppliers to absorb part of the cost and diversified production to Vietnam.

As higher tariffs on China became a pillar of Trump’s 2023 re-election campaign, Krinsky asked Zhiwei Furniture, a supplier he described as a husband-and-wife team in China that produced 35% of his inventory, to open a second plant in Vietnam. Construction began in August 2024, and the factory opened in March 2025 outside Ho Chi Minh City in Dong Nai. It employed 130 people.

Upholsterer Nguyen Van Hai, 32, said he worked up to 10 hours a day, six days a week, for about $8,000 a year. Nguyen said that salary was high and that he hoped to buy a house and set aside enough money for his two children’s education.

Krinsky initially believed he had diversified away from Chinese exposure. Soon after the Vietnam plant opened, Trump imposed another 34% tariff on Chinese goods and proposed a 46% tariff on Vietnam. Inflation and supply-chain changes had already pushed the retail price of the $900 sofa to about $1,250. Krinsky said another 46% tariff would bring it close to $2,000. “At $2,000, there’s no reason for us to exist,” he said.

Worried that orders would dry up, Krinsky searched for an American factory and found one in High Point with $2.4 million in back orders and only a couple of weeks of payroll before insolvency. He bought the plant from its previous owners for zero dollars, agreeing to continue operating and invest in it. He named the operation Revival American Contract Furniture, which would produce TOV products and goods for third parties.

The cost difference was immediate. North Carolina’s $7.25 minimum hourly wage added up to roughly $15,000 a year, but a shortage of upholsterers meant starting pay was roughly $45,000 a year, while top upholsterers could surpass $90,000. In Vietnam, Krinsky calculated labor and materials at $280 per couch, tariffs at $70, ocean shipping at $75 and U.S. delivery at $230, for a total of $655. In High Point, labor and materials alone cost $1,000, and domestic shipping brought the total to $1,230 against a $1,500 retail price.

Production also differed. Krinsky said High Point upholsterers completed two to three sofas a day, while workers at his Asian partners completed 10. A former employee said the factory was inefficient because Krinsky lacked manufacturing experience and was not on site enough. Krinsky said that criticism was fair and that he made mistakes, but said he hired experienced on-site managers to oversee the plant.

Krinsky said he was losing $100 or more on each sofa. He might have broken even by raising the retail price to $2,000, he said, but that was outside TOV’s market. He closed the plant on July 31. “It was the worst period of my life,” he said. “It was like being constantly punched in the gut.”

A nearby factory illustrated a different business model. Michael Thomas Furniture employed 150 people by selling sofas for $3,000 to $5,000 to older and more affluent customers. President George Jordan said, “If you’re trying to get below $2,000 on sofas, it’s harder.” The number of North Carolinians working in the furniture industry had fallen from 91,000 in 1990 to 27,000 this year, even as High Point continued to call itself the Furniture Capital of the World.

By the time Krinsky closed High Point, the Supreme Court had struck down Trump’s global levies. Executive orders then produced a 50% tariff on upholstered furniture from China and a 25% tariff from Vietnam. The rates were scheduled to rise to 55% and 30%, respectively, in January. Krinsky moved ahead with about 70% of his furniture made in Vietnam.

Customs officials then flagged 17 shipments, about 45 shipping containers of products, from the Dong Nai factory, saying the goods should be treated as Chinese-made and subject to a higher tariff. The bill was $135,000. Krinsky called the claim ridiculous and said he believed he was targeted in an effort to hit quotas, though he acknowledged that some materials and machinery used at the Vietnam plant came from China.

Krinsky submitted more than 1,000 pages of documents and photos, along with videos, to show that the furniture was made in Vietnam. U.S. officials said his evidence was insufficient, and Krinsky hired a lawyer to continue the challenge. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman said the agency did not use quotas for illegal-transshipment investigations and could not comment on individual importers.

At the Dong Nai plant, about 30 of the 130 workers were Chinese, according to managers. Those employees handled the most complicated pieces, though managers said they were gradually being replaced by local workers. Krinsky said he needed to resolve the bill to prevent what he called a recurring, open-ended liability. “I need to stop it so it’s not a recurring, open-ended thing where I can get a bill next year for a million dollars,” he said.

A White House spokesman said Trump was delivering on his promise to “level the playing field for American workers, expand job opportunities and raise wages for hardworking families.” The spokesman said the president would continue using his authority to restore prosperity to communities “hollowed out by jobs shipped overseas.”

Krinsky said he had hoped the administration would be positive for business but was disappointed by what he described as a gap between policy and conditions on the ground. “What exactly is an American business supposed to do?” he said. “We’re trying to do what the government wants.” He also said he had voted for Trump three times because he viewed the president as the most pro-business candidate, but held little hope that the midterm election would change the tariff situation. “Furniture tariffs are not going to be at the top of either party’s agenda,” he said.