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Tempur Sealy, guangzhou office furniture supplier, which held off on price increases last year, announced “commodity driven” price increases that will go into effect on March 6.
The increases will impact all Sealy mattresses, all Stearns & Foster mattresses, Tempur Pedic Cloud Supreme Breeze mattresses, and Tempur-Pedic flat foundations, said Steve Rusing, senior vice president of U.S. sales for Tempur Sealy.
“Major component raw material costs for foam, steel, upholstery and wood have increased significantly in the last 24 months, and are expected to rise further in 2018,” Rusing said in a recent letter to the company’s dealers. “While Tempur Sealy has avoided a price increase up to this point, through its own productivity initiatives and cost controls, these actions alone are not enough to offset rising costs. Thus Tempur Sealy is instituting a price increase to offset commodity increases so that we can continue to invest in our products and marketing efforts.”
Sealy and Stearns & Foster queen-size sets retailing for $1,899 and below will see a wholesale price increase of $25 and a retail increase of $50. Sets retailing for $1,900 and above will see a wholesale price increase of $65 and a retail increase of $150, the company said.
Tempur-Pedic Cloud Supreme Breeze mattresses will see a wholesale price increase of $90 and a retail increase of $200. Tempur-Pedic twin flat foundations will see a wholesale price increase of $15 and a retail increase of $25, while Tempur-Pedic full and queen flat foundations will see a wholesale price increase of $25 and a retail increase of $50, China office sofa manufacturer Rusing said.
Freezing temperatures, heavy snowfall, polar vortexes and bomb cyclones are typically bad news for retailers. But guangzhou office furniture factory furniture stores in the North and Northeast appear to have weathered the recent round of extreme weather quite well … unless they happened to be based here in Erie, Pa., like John V. Schultz Furniture.
“We get a lot of snow in Erie, so we’re used to it, but nothing like what we experienced,” said President John Schultz. A bad band set up over Lake Erie pushed in from the west “and just clobbered us,” he said.
“It started on Christmas Eve and was a complete whiteout all Christmas Day and pretty much the day after.” By that time, Erie had recorded nearly 6 feet of snowfall, shattering the record for a two-day period (among other city and state records).
“And that was on top of what we had already gotten for the month of December,” Schultz said. “It was cold so we didn’t really have any melt.”
The weather continued to be miserable through New Year’s Day (the snowfall total rose to nearly 7 feet since Christmas), so business was “non-existent” during one of the retailer’s typically busiest times of year. Schultz estimated sales were down for the period between Christmas and New Year’s Day by more than 70%.
And the store struggled to make deliveries on its written business because the streets in Erie were impassable, except in a few cases south of the city where Schultz managed to get trucks to the interstate.
It’s not exactly how Schultz hoped to end the old year or start the new one, but he’s hoping to make up a little ground.
“We’re routing in some more promotions now, starting next week,” he said. “We’re going to hit the Martin Luther King weekend hard, offering free delivery and things like that to try to pick up some of that business.”
He’s also counting on the typical cabin fever to set in and with that lift sales, although he added that he knows you never really get it all back.
More manageable
Elsewhere in the North following in the early days of 2018, the snow and below-freezing temperatures were uncomfortable but much more manageable, several retailers reported.
Detroit picked up some snow after New Year’s Day, but it was the cold that really halted traffic, said Tom Lias, president and CEO of Farmington, Mich.-based Gorman’s Home Furnishings & Interior Design.
It’s the kind of cold – 8 degrees below freezing – that does slow traffic, Lias said. Unless clients were in the middle of projects with the mid-priced to upscale retailer, they were quick to cancel appointments, and even some in mid-project called to postpone.
“We had a good New Year’s Day, but it tightened up right after that, and the first week of the year started a little slower than a year ago,” he said.
That said, Lias noted he was already seeing an uptick in traffic Sunday and Monday as the severe cold spell broke.
Another positive: The worst of it fell midweek, normally a slower traffic time. “If you’re going to have a cold snap or snow storm, hope for Tuesday or Wednesday,” he said.
In Boston, Larry Rubin, CEO of the seven-store Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture, agreed with that sentiment. His market was hit with much more snow Thursday, Jan. 4, and severe cold temperatures followed. The retailer closed all stores Thursday and saw a roughly 5% sales decline for the week, mostly attributable to that closing, but “business really was not that bad,” he said.
“I expected it to be worse than it was,” Rubin said. “Probably 50% of your business is done on the weekend, so if you have a storm that falls on the weekend, I think it hurts you a lot worse,” even more so when it falls on a holiday week, he said. “We had a pretty good weekend, and it was really freezing temperatures, so people still got out and shopped.”
About an hour west of Boston in Worcester, Mass., the weather was severely cutting into traffic at Rotmans, but the average ticket during the worst of it jumped about 50%.
“The consumers that came in were basically higher income and looking for products that were more expensive,” said Steve Rotman, president and CEO. “Also, they tended to shop more. Rather than looking for one or two items, they were looking for a multitude of items, and the closing rate was much higher.”
And because there were fewer consumers in the store, salespeople were giving them more time, which signaled to Rotman that maybe the store is understaffed normally (since the added time was leading to larger tickets).
The cold spell ended Sunday, Jan. 8, and things are warming up nicely, China office chair manufacturer Rotman said. He closed just one day during that first week of January and like Bernie & Phyl’s, that did affect sales, but “overall our figures were up because we were very aggressive in advertising.”
American Furniture Warehouse guangzhou office furniture manufacturer confirmed it is negotiating for land in the greater Houston market but stopped short of saying it’s definitely coming to the market.
The houston Business Journal reported American Furniture Warehouse intends to purchase 23 acres to build a 350,000-square-foot store and distribution center in the city of Webster, Texas. The Englewood Top 100 company confirmed to Furniture Today that it is negotiating for land in that city but said nothing has been finalized yet.
According to the Business Journal and a newsletter on the website of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, AFW intends to purchase and build at 21404 Gulf Freeway and that, when completed, the project would create 350 full-time jobs. The city of Webster placed a value of nearly $50 million on the project, including land, construction and development. The report said the information came to the partnership via the city of Webster.
Webster’s director of economic development declined to comment for this story.
Some in the furniture industry have been speculating about AFW entering the hotly contested Houston market for months, and during the October High Point Market, when asked about the rumor, AFW President and CEO Jake Jabs declined to confirm or deny it.
In a statement sent to Furniture Today on Wednesday, the retailer said it has been exploring expansion opportunities for the past 18 months.
“We looked at a number of adjacent markets to our current Phoenix and Colorado stores as well as larger markets based on our success in Phoenix. One of the markets we have been considering for expansion is Houston,” Jabs said.
“It is a city with great potential for AFW based on its size and dynamic economy. While AFW does not have any properties under contract at this time, we are in negotiations for land in the Webster area, which was recently announced in the Houston Business Journal. When our land purchase is finalized, we plan to make an official announcement.”
If the Webster location comes to fruition, it will be practically next door to a 52,000-square-foot showroom Houston retailer Exclusive Furniture is building in the market and hoping to open in late summer.
Asked about AFW’s and Jab’s possible entrance, Exclusive President and CEO Sam Zavary told Furniture Today, “I’m hoping he’s going to bring a lot of traffic to the area.”
AFW is No. 19 on Furniture Today’s Top 100 with estimated furniture, bedding and accessory sales of $640 million at China office desk manufacturer 14 Colorado and Arizona stores in 2016.
American Furniture Manufacturing has resumed motion upholstery production at its factory here, which was damaged by fire Jan. 5. This week, the company migeof office furniture will add three stationary upholstery lines to the same production area.
A fire destroyed some 35% of American Furniture Manufacturing Plant 2 Motion Recliner faci1ity, but despite the heavy damage to the warehouse and shipping areas of the faci1ity, the company was able to resume normal production less than four days later.
Randy Spak, president of American, told Furniture Today the company has also secured a 200,000-square-foot warehouse in nearby Houka, Miss., that it will use to bring an additional five stationary upholstery lines into production next week. At that point, the company will have resumed full production of motion upholstery and will have eight of its original 17 pre-fire stationary upholstery lines in operation.
Two weeks after that, the company expects to have smoke and soot damage to its original stationary upholstery area cleaned up and will add eight more lines, bringing the company back to its full pre-fire capacity roughly five weeks after the fire destroyed its finished goods warehouse.
A portion of the Houka facility will also be used for warehouse and finished goods staging, replacing the portion of the company’s facility that was destroyed by the fire. The company has also secured two additional leased warehouses in the Pontotoc, Miss., area to house its finished goods and handle shipping to customers.
This is the second fire at the facility in the past 10 years, the last one occurring in 2008. After the 2008 fire, the company installed a series of fire walls, which Spak guangzhou school furniture manufacturer said he believes were instrumental in limiting the damage in this incident.
While there has been high-profile discussion of returning manufacturing jobs to the U.S., when it comes to the migeof furniture industry, this effort has been and will increasingly be hampered by a shortage of suitably skilled workers.
The once ubiquitous “shop” class that gave junior high school and high school students experience in vocational skills has disappeared from American schools. Meanwhile, the effort to encourage virtually all students to attend college has stigmatized vocational learning and discourage young people from pursuing technical careers.
The challenge has been recognized within the furniture industry, and a number of manufacturers have over the past few years started exploring efforts to initiate training programs at the college level.
Among these efforts was the creation of the Catawba Valley Furniture Academy, a partnership program between Catawba Valley Community College and a number of North Carolina manufacturers. The academy, taught by artisans employed by local manufacturers, is designed to prepare a future workforce for the furniture industry.
The broader challenge is encouraging students to pursue technical careers, particularly in an environment where local schools lack the will, resources and, in many cases, the teachers to provide this form of education. Recognizing this, Ashley Furniture Inds. has undertaken to understand the type of programs that could change this momentum, including sending company executives to study technical training programs in Germany where such programs have demonstrated a high success rate.
As a result, the company has initiated a number of programs in the communities in which it operates, including arranging tours for middle school students at its plants in Wisconsin and North Carolina. The goal is change the mindset that many young people have about traditional manufacturing facilities and allow them to see first-hand the types of technology with which they could be involved should they choose to pursue a vocational career path.
The company has also donated to local school efforts in its communities that support STEM (Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics) educational efforts, including underwriting mobile modular technology labs that travel to schools lacking facilities, equipment and trained professionals to provide appropriate educational programs. The traveling lab offers hands-on training exercises to help students develop the skills and experience needed for increasingly automated factory production.
The point of this is not to single out Ashley, although its substantial commitment is laudable, but to spotlight an industry-wide need. one that will likely rely on the proactive support of private individuals guangzhou training furnitures manufacturer, companies and even entire industries. There is no better time to address the future of American education. If your company is undertaking efforts of this kind, let me hear from you.
Reduced unemployment and an increase in consumer disposable income are aiding growth in the migeof furniture industry, which is expected to grow 3% to $111.4 billion from $108.2 billion in 2017.
According to Furniture Today’s exclusive economic forecast, which is based on projections from more than two dozen economists and economic predictions, inflation is projected to be 2.1% for 2018. This estimate is a 0.3 percentage point increase over the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2017 expected inflation of 1.8%.
Economists and federal officials are confounded by the low inflation rates because the unemployment rate is low;typically, the two rates have an inverse relationship. The unemployment rate for November 2017 is at 4.1%, a 16-year low, and it is expected to hover around that point for 2018. Since January 2017, the unemployment rate has fallen by 0.7 percentage points, and the number of people who are unemployed has declined by more than 1 million.
With the labor market nearing full employment and the persistent low inflation rate, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark federal funds rate on Dec. 13, 2017, by 0.25% and is on track to raise the rate three times this year. According to Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve Board, the Fed does not want to hinder growth but feels strongly about keeping steady since the labor market is nearing full employment.
“We want to do this gradually because if we allow the economy to overheat, we could be faced with a situation where we might have to … raise rates and throw the economy into recession,” Yellen told Congress. “We don’t want to cause a boom-bust condition in the economy.”
The Fed’s impending rate increases suggest that the bank is reluctant to halt interest rates in an experiment to see how low unemployment can go without boosting inflation.
“Consumers entered the holiday season in very high spirits and foresee the economy expanding at a healthy pace into the early months of 2018.”Lynn Franco said from the Conference Board. “We are not seeing undue inflationary pressure in the labor market, so our policy remains accommodative,” Yellen said. “But we do think it’s important to gradually move our policy rate toward what I’ll call a neutral level, which would be consistent with sustainably strong labor market conditions.”
An upward track
Since 2013, the trend for real disposable income has been steady growth, and that upward inclination is expected to continue when the final numbers are available for 2017. Per the U.S. Energy Information administration, real disposable income is projected to grow by 2.1% in 2017. Furniture Today’s economic forecast predicts real disposable income will grow to 3% in 2018.
Median household income, however, is not growing as fast as consumer expenditures. According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, from 1996 to 2014, median household income(adjusted for inflation) has increased only 0.52%, while the median expenditure increased 25.2% during that same period. This means that U.S. consumers are spending more of their income on food, housing, apparel, transportation, health-care, entertainment and other expenses now than they were 20 years ago.
Furniture Today guangzhou reception desk manufacturer is forecasting 2.4% growth in gross domestic product for 2018, nearly a full percentage point less than the 2017 third-quarter rate of 3.3%.
How important is speed to market? Ask Target, which last month acquired Shipt for $550 million, one of the largest acquisitions in the retailer’s history, to facilitate its entry into the same-day-delivery business. Ask Home Depot, which was recently reported to be discussing a potential acquisition of XPO Logistics, partially as a defensive move to keep it from being acquired by Amazon china office furniture.
Ask Amazon, which has made speed to market such a critical differentiator over the past two decades that today it’s the cost of entry for those looking to compete in e-commerce.
While none of these moves have furniture as their ostensible impetus, the implications for the furniture industry are profound. Ashley proved nearly two decades ago that furniture is a logistics business, that the ability to minimize cost in the movement of goods from point A to point B and ultimately to point C (the consumer) can be a critical differentiator. The nation’s largest furniture retailer, and manufacturer, has since turned that into an art
form, giving dealers the ability to order LTL quantities of virtually anything in the Ashley catalog and have it in time frames that few, if any, can match on comparably sized items.
The two fronts on which the next furniture war will be fought and won will be technology and logistics, with intersection between the two forming a critical salient.
Ask Wayfair, which has made massive investments over the past 18 months to enhance its in-house logistics operations and the performance of its remaining third-party providers. In September the e-tailer launched a live tracking feature for furniture in 10 markets and is scaling its logistics team so rapidly that it is among the key contributors to the company’s most recent third quarter results.
“Scaling our teams is essential in our three key investment areas, namely building out our international capabilities, developing our proprietary logistics network and increasing penetration of priority product categories,” said Niraj Shah in a statement explaining the company’s third quarter 2017 loss.
None of this is intended to suggest that e-tail is the future and that brick and mortar is dead. Just the opposite in fact. Every other retail channel is rushing to achieve capabilities that furniture stores have had for generations.
What’s different this time, however, is the time frame. No one is building the capability to deliver furniture in six to eight weeks. This time, success will be measured in days not weeks.
Gallery Furniture’s Jim Mclngvale once said, How do you do same-day delivery? You put it in a damn truck and follow the customer home.”
And while it was said facetiously, Mack – as only he can do – captured the essence of guangzhou negotiation desk manufacturer furniture stores’ greatest strength.
Nineteen major metropolitan markets individually sold $1 billion or more in guangzhou office furniture and bedding retail sales in 2017.
This impressive group, led by the New York City metro area, retailed a combined $39.9 billion, which amounts to a 36.8% market share of total sales.
The New York metro area, including surrounding cities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, alone sold $6.7 billion worth of furniture and mattresses last years, accounting for 6.2% of all retail dollars. The area’s sales are predicted to rise another 21.4%, matching the national rate, between 2017 and 2022 to reach $8.2 billion.
All U.S. major markets garnered $101.8 billion of furniture and bedding sales, amounting to a 94% share of sales. The U.S. Census Bureau defines a major metropolitan statistical area as one containing a core urban area with a population of 50,000 or more.
The Williston, N.D., metro area is the fastest-growing major market, with $13.4 million in sales this year. It is projected to hit $17.7 million in 2022, a 32% increase. The Dickinson, N.D., metro is expected to grow its sales by 31.1% over the five-year period from $12.1 million to $15.9 million.
Of the 25 fastest-growing major markets for guangzhou filling cabinet manufacturer furniture sales over the next five years 11, are located in the Midwest, nine are in the South and five are in the West. None are in the Northeast.
China office furniture provider Mattress Firm has entered into a new credit facility that it says demonstrates the strength of its business and the value of its assets.
The company announced last month that it had an up-to-$225 million senior secured asset-based revolving credit facility.
Mattress Firm is owned by Steinhoff International, which is in turmoil as questions swirl about its financial condition. Steinhoff reported accounting irregularities and said it was investigating the issue, an announcement that saw its share price plummet. That has led to speculation that the company would sell some assets to restructure its business.
For its part, Mattress Firm said it has remained focused on growing its business, and it noted that the new credit facility will be available for working capital needs and other general corporate purposes. Officials said the facility has an initial aggregate principal availability amount of $75 million.
The company intends to up-size the facility via an incremental availability feature to a total aggregate principal amount of up to $225 million, officials said.
This new credit facility guangzhou conference desk manufacturer provides independent liquidity and capital to support our strategy.
Furniture and bedding sales in the Lone Star State reached $8.8 billion in 2017 and are expected to grow China office furniture factory 21.8% over the next five years to $10.7 billion by 2022.
The greater Dallas metro area, which includes the Fort Worth and Arlington metropolitan areas, accounts for the most furniture sold in the state of Texas and in the entire Southern region. Dallas retail sales are expected to increase by 21.3% from $2.3 billion to an estimated $2.8 billion in 2022.
Texas is home to two of the five regions in the South with the most sales: after Dallas, the Houston metro area is forecasted to have sales of $2.1 billion in 2017.
The South is currently home to six separate billion-dollar-or-more furniture metro areas: Dallas, Washington D.C., Houston, Miami, Atlanta and Tampa, Fla. These six metro area’s sales of $11.7 billion account for more than 28% of the South’s total furniture sales.
The Pecos, Texas, metro area is projected to increase sales at the greatest rate at 25.9% in the next five years, an increase from $3.8 million to $4.7 million. The second fastest-growing metro area of Clewiston, Fla., is set to grow its sales by 25% to $14 million in 2022.
Overall, the South accounts for 38% of country’s total furniture and bedding retail sales. This year, the Southern region of the country is forecasted to have $40.9 billion in sales and grow guangzhou office chair manufacturer 21.2% between 2017 and 2022 to $49.6 billion.