SIC 3269 Pottery Products, Not Elsewhere Classified

SIC 3269

This industry consists of manufacturers of art and ornamental pottery, industrial and laboratory pottery, unglazed earthenware florists' articles, and earthenware table and kitchen articles, as well as those establishments primarily engaged in firing and decorating white china and earthenware for the trade.

NAICS CODE(S)

327112

Vitreous China, Fine Earthenware, and Other Pottery Product Manufacturing

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

The manufacture of pottery products, like the manufacture of vitreous china table and kitchen articles (see SIC 3262: Vitreous China Table and Kitchen Articles) is an anomaly in twenty-first-century American industry. It is labor intensive and to a large extent involves machinery and techniques that have changed little in the last half century.

Pottery is made of clays that are mixed with other chemicals. Some pottery products are made on modern versions of potters' wheels, and some are glazed and fired at extremely high temperatures to become vitreous china. Pottery that is glazed and fired in a kiln becomes vitrified, or nonporous and glass-like, when the high temperatures cause the glaze to fuse with the clay; this china is both delicate and extremely durable. For this reason, it is used for fine giftware such as bone china figurines and lamp bases.

Competition from abroad was intense. Pottery products were sold in the United States from Japanese, English, Chinese, and Spanish manufacturers, among others. Imports accounted for almost three-quarters of the U.S. gift market. During the first half of the 1990s, weakness in the U.S. dollar helped to even the playing field somewhat, allowing U.S. manufacturers to sell more of their wares in Canada, Taiwan, and Mexico. However, as the decade progressed and the dollar again strengthened, foreign manufacturers regained the upper hand. The weakening dollar in the early 2000s did little to boost exports as other nations also experienced recessionary economic conditions.

The industry is also closely tied to economic conditions, as many consumers consider art and ornamental pottery to be a luxury. Although the U.S. economy was recovering in the early 1990s, the upturn in the giftware market was slower than in other industries. Even fine china, once considered a staple of the bridal market, was being rejected in the late 1990s by some young couples who preferred to put more money into electronic equipment or more expensive housing. Between 1997 and 2001, industry shipments declined from $1 billion to $779.2 million. Shipments of pottery products, not elsewhere classified, accounted for 67.6 percent of vitreous china, fine earthenware, and other pottery product shipments.

ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE

The pottery products industry is led by several manufacturers who also create tableware and kitchenware made of vitreous china and semivitreous earthenware. Much of the equipment used by these manufacturers is the same for all of these products. Glazes and kiln temperatures vary widely, however, and the manufacturers often keep their different lines separate. Some manufacturers, for example, create their unglazed red earthenware lines in a separate plant from their semivitreous tableware lines.

The giftware market is critical for these manufacturers. Some of the promotional or commemorative pottery items slid through the recession without suffering, as corporate buyers continued to purchase promotional ceramics at much the same rate.

BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENT

Porcelain was being made in China as early as the ninth century. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fine porcelain art objects were being created in Europe as...

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