Arabic 
Dutch 
English 
French 
German 
Hebrew 
Italian 
Portuguese 
Russian 
Spanish 
The nine states of the Northeast region contain 56.3 million people, who live there and purchase furniture and bedding. Those China office furniture company consumers spent a combined $19.4 billion on product in 2017.
The region contains the largest metropolitan area in the country, both in terms of population and in furniture sales, New York City. The greater New York major metro is projected to increase furniture sales by 21.7% over the next five years.
Four states in the Northeast are predicted to increase sales faster than the national average of 21.4%: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. Massachusetts’s and New Hampshire’s furniture and bedding sales are anticipated to grow by 21.5% each; New York’s sales are expected to grow by 21.4% and Vermont by 22.2%.
Ithaca, N.Y., has the highest rate of growth from 2017 to 2022 in the Northeast of 23.3% to reach $43.2 million. The average household living in Ithaca earns $88,258.
The second fastest-growing metro area in the Northeast is Watertown-Fort Drum, N.Y., which is slated to grow 23.1% over the next five year and Auburn, N.Y., with a growth rate of 23%.
Overall, 32 metro areas in the Northeast are expected to outpace the national average of 21.4% sales growth from 2017 to 2022.
Forest County in Pennsylvania is predicted to grow guangzhou office chair manufacturer furniture sales by 24.5% to $2.5 million over the next five years. That makes Forest the fastest-growing county in the Northeast. Average household incomes within Forest are $56,229. A total of 7,328 people and just 2,400 households live there.
guangzhou office furniture manufacturer furniture and bedding retail sales increased an estimated 3.3% this year reaching $108.2 billion. Retail sales totaled $104.8 billion in 2016, 2.7% over 2015’s sales of $102 billion.
These furniture and bedding sales figures are Furniture Today’s market research estimates, based on personal consumption expenditure data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The U.S. economy remains in expansion through 2017. Economic reports are “a reflection on the fairly solid economic environment we’re currently enjoying” said Russell Price, senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit.
Median household income has continued to grow. The real median household income for 2016 was up 32% to $59,039 from the 2015 median income of $57,230, according to the latest information from the U.S. Census Bureau. The increase in median income was seen across all characteristics including region, age, and race and ethnicity.
Housing starts, however, is a low spot. After three months of decline, October saw a housing start increase of 13.7% to 1.29 million up from a revised September of 1.135 million, but down 2.9% from one year ago.
“Housing still remains a drag on the economy, as shortages of labor and available lots, coupled with rising building material prices, further complicate existing inventory, affordability and sales challenges,” said Fannie Mae Chief Economist Doug Duncan.
Sales for housing have seen improvement, though. Through September, new home sales have increased 18.9% from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 667,000, an increase of 17% over September 2016. guangzhou office partition manufacturer existing home sales reversed course slightly in September after three months of decline, rising by 0.7% to 5.39 million.
All the fundamentals that presage sales growth for the China office furniture manufacturer industry are in place.
Housing activity positive? Check. Consumer confidence strong? Check. Unemployment low? Double check. Demographics of household formation rising? Check.
With all that in mind, 2018 should be a great year, right?
Not so fast. All those things were essentially true in 2017, and yet, depending on whom you ask, the words you’re likely to hear about this year are “disappointing,” “struggle,” “flat.” According to Furniture Today estimates, which tend to be somewhat conservative, the industry will end 2017 up a little more than 3%. In a tough economy, that would be considered a victory. Except there is nothing to suggest this is a tough economy; in fact, just the opposite. And yet sales of big-ticket goods, not just furniture, continue to be challenged.
There are factors that could positively impact sales activity, mostly in sections of the country impacted by various natural disasters, which are serving to bring consumers back into the market. However, for the remainder of the country, questions still remain about what it will take to get consumers to part with their discretionary dollars.
And the answer for 2018 is likely to be essentially the same as in 2017 – hard work, an ever-increasing share of voice and a relentless commitment to delivering functionally and aesthetically unique product. Couple this with an in-store experience worthy of turning off the computer, getting in the car and driving to the store, and you’re starting to understand all that goes in to being successful in today’s more competitive retail environment.
And that doesn’t even include the digital portion of the experience, which had better align seamlessly with that of the store.
If all this sounds impossible, take heart – it’s not. In fact, there are retailers that are delivering on most and, in many cases, all of this. And guess what? They’re outperforming the industry.
Take RH, whose membership model and design galleries offering food and drink for sale propelled the retailer to 7% same-store gains in the most recently reported quarter.
After a challenging 2016 putting the pieces in place to disrupt its own model, RH has rebounded strongly and appears well positioned to deliver above average growth in 2018. And it is not alone. There are many, albeit lower-profile, retailers that are finding their own paths to success.
The difference is they are no longer relying on the traditional business drivers or even their own traditional methods to grow their business. They are breaking out of their comfort zones, trying new things, testing, failing and trying again.
There is no question that 2018 has all the elements to be a great year for the guangzhou office desk manufacturer furniture Industry. And it will be, for those who make it so.
Sales at migeof furniture and home furnishings stores rebounded in October with a 4.4% increase over the same month last year and trailed the 4.7% gain for the broad retail sector, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported recently.
Estimated furniture and home furnishings store sales reached $9.7 billion in October, up from a revised $9.3 billion in October 2016, the government said. Sales for the sector increased 0.7% from the month before, after the government revised up the September number to $9.64 billion from the previous $9.57 billion estimate.
From August through October, furniture and home furnishings store sales gained 4.2% over the same three months last year and were up 0.6% from the May-through-July 2017 period, the report said.
Total U.S. retail and food services sales increased 4.6% in October from the same month Last year to $486.6 billion and were up 0.2% from revised September numbers. Retail sales increased 4.7% from a year ago and 0.2% from September 2017.
The largest year-over-year gains came from the same two sectors as the previous month – building material and garden equipment and supplies stores (up 8.8%) and gas stations (up 7.5%). Sales for non-store retailers – primarily by e-commerce and catalog businesses – increased 6.8% from October a year ago for the third largest gain but were down 0.3% from September.
Only one retail subcategory last month posted a year-over-year sales decline – sporting goods, hobby, books and music stores – down 2.5%. Department stores, a subcategory of general merchandise stores that has been rocked with year-over-year declines every month this year posted a slight gain this time with October China school furniture manufacturer sales increasing 0.8% over the revised October 2016 number.
Lavender shoes with yellow soles and a lavender shirt announce Bill Herren’s comfort with color and arresting migeof presentation.
Despite his obvious flair, however, Herren, an industrial engineer by training, was hired 31 years ago to redo Whitecraft’s customer service department.
Then the company’s showroom designer quit, and Herren’s search for a replacement failed. All the designers he interviewed lacked the fundamentals of good showroom design: “They don’t know us, or our customers or our furniture,” Herren recalled telling his boss.
So Herren began designing showrooms 16 years ago, and when Woodard Furniture bought Whitecraft in 2012, Herren became the company’s creative director.
Merchandising done well builds clientele and boosts sales, which is why Herren spends much of his time visiting Woodard’s retailers.
He often starts with showing the retailer how to display outdoor product to grab customer’s attention.
“I’ll do a whole sofa in some wild fabrics for two reasons,” Herren said. “To make sure everybody stops and looks at it, and so that dealers don’t get scared to show something like that.
“Because if the dealers have the right salespeople, they can put some of the more unusual stuff on their floor, knowing that their salespeople are able to explain to customers, “This isn’t the only way you can get this. You can order this with any of 500 different fabrics’.
“If they can do that, then they have a chance to show a little bit more color and life on their floors than … beige.”
Applying the showroom concept used with indoor furniture also helps, Herren said, because customers need to see more than just a few choices.
“If you’re only showing two sets or three sets, then the customer might say, “Well, I don’t like those’, and they’ll turn around and walk out,” Herren said. “It’s not giving them an opportunity to pick something that they like.”
But with floor space at a premium. retailers need to select styles they know will appeal to their customers and “put it with the right finish and the right fabric that will show well in their store, Herren said.
The next step is to accessorize each grouping completely. “I love throw pillows,” he said. “It’s a less expensive way of dressing up something” or adding color to a neutral upholstery.
“A set table always looks so much nicer than an empty rectangular empty space,” he said, and a rug defines the whole ensemble and “makes you look at just that set right there, like it’s in its own little box.”
If a retailer has a grouping set up and accessorized correctly, Herren said, “the customer’s not only going to buy that furniture, they’re going to buy everything around that furniture so they can duplicate it at home.”
Keeping the showroom tidy is a must, but also a challenge because customers will sit in a group of furniture, handle the accessories, rearrange the throw pillows, leave their water bottles and walk to the next group, Herren said.
The entire store will soon be in disarray if a retailer doesn’t have someone continuously tidying up. “Hopefully you have customers coming in throughout the day,” Herren said, “so it’s not an end-of-the-day kind of thing.”
Floating furniture doesn’t sell as well, Herren has concluded. Woodard makes iron, aluminum and woven collections, and at one point displayed those groups separately.
Customers may enter the store and “in their minds are saying, “I only want iron furniture,” and if they didn’t like that iron group, they might just turn around and walk out.”
But if they see something they hadn’t thought of before, such as a woven group as they’re walking through, “they might say “let me see how that feels.”
This is where the eye-popping accessorizing can help. For a customer to even consider buying furniture, “it has to look good,” Herren said. “Then it has to sit good. If you have those, then the price appeal is not that big a deal anymore.”
All this can fail, however, if the sales staff isn’t properly trained.
“Unless you’re knowledgeable about outdoor furniture, how do you explain to someone that they’re going to pay $2,000 more for something that’s going to sit outside, as opposed to the sofa that’s going to be inside that they’re going to sit on everyday?” Herren posed.
Retailers need staff who can explain to customers the quality, the warranties, the durability that come with the price tag.
And who can deliver the one thing that should go without saying, Herren added: “China training furnitures manufacturer Customers are not going to buy from anybody, be it store or online, who doesn’t give them the service they should get.”
Retailers attending migeof office furniture Furniture Today’s Leadership Conference here last week reported strong Black Friday weekend business for the most part, gaining ground on other retail sectors.
Bill Daniels, president of Fair-field, Ohio-based Furniture Fair, characterized Black Friday business as “very good” with sales ahead of last year. Three days before Friday, the retailer starts promoting with a teaser campaign, letting consumers know the stores are closed on Thanksgiving. It then ran a promotion Friday through the weekend and extended into Monday, offering 48-month interest-free financing or a large cash discount.
“I think people are looking for reasons to buy and Black Friday pulls them out,” Daniels said. Over 10 years ago, the holiday wasn’t that important to the retailer, and it really didn’t go after the business. “But once you start, you can’t stop. You’ve got to keep going after it.”
Daniels also believes the dilution of the holiday by broader sector retailers – with sales creeping into Thanksgiving day and with more consumers shopping online – has actually been good for furniture stores.
“I waited on several customers myself who said that (they’re doing other shopping) earlier and on the web,” he said. “They’re using Black Friday for the bigger ticket items.”
Walker Furniture’s Black Friday promotion included an eight-page circular filled with “great promotional price points and door busters,” said Mike Cohen, president of the Las Vegas retailer.
“We limit the quantity,” he said, adding, “We had a line wrapped around the front of our building waiting to get in at 8 a.m.”
In the past, Walker has promoted more specials for what has always been its top day of the year. But this time, it managed the offering better to present values that were truly door busters, he said, such as a five-piece bedroom for $399, limited to 25 sets, and sharp-looking sofas for $299 and $399, also limited to about 20 sets.
“We sold out of most everything,” he said. “It was a great Black Friday (Friday through Monday).” And by controlling the specials better, Walker’s margins were up considerably, he said.
“It was much more successful, because we also gave sales-people something else they could step a customer into, with a little more margin – still a strong value, but we gave sales-people purpose in selling to try to increase average ticket.
“We would rather do less business more profitably,” Cohen said. “And the result was it wasn’t really that big of a difference. We still had a great Black Friday, but by managing our back end much better we had a much more profitable promotion.”
Steve Rotman, owner of Worcester, Mass.-based Rotmans, called Black Friday “good but not great,” and it all came down to one mistake. On one of its circulars the retailer accidentally left off the store name – and for a category that is typically one of its best categories for the period – bedding.
If anything, Rotman said this shows that print advertising is still important, at least in secondary markets where broadcast advertising can be unaffordable. Despite the gaffe, China reception desk manufacturer he said sales were still up for November.
Amazon’s Wendy Franks didn’t shy away from the one thing that has some in the migeof furniture industry excited and others very nervous: acknowledgement that furniture is a high-growth, high-investment area for the e-commerce giant.
In her presentation to attendees at Furniture Today’s 2017 Leadership Conference here. Franks, senior manager of vendor relations-furniture for Amazon, blended details on the e-taller’s core tenets (selection, convenience and value) with a pitch, primarily to the suppliers in the room. She told them what the Seattle-based company was doing to make headway in the space and how they can participate and gain from Amazon’s massive customer base, customer-focused technology and other advances.
First, some statistics:
. Today, more than 300 million people worldwide have active Amazon accounts. In the U.S., more than 100 million unique mobile visitors shop monthly (nearly 100 million via desktop).
. The customer demographic skews higher than you might think. Franks showed how more than 50% of Amazon’s customers have annual household incomes of $75,000 or more and said for those with income of $112,000 or more, ComScore estimates about three-quarters are Prime members.
. It’s attracting customers of all ages. Some 65% are over 35 years old, in or entering prime furniture buying years. Thirty-eight percent are 50 or older.
Franks also pointed to an eMarketer study that found 73% of U.S. Internet users say they would consider purchasing furniture online.
“Customers are increasingly looking online to fulfill their home furnishing needs, and we expect that trend to continue,” she said. Given the many shoppers Amazon already reaches and the numbers that have yet to purchase a furniture item,” we see a ton of upside there.”
And each day, it appears Amazon is more prepared for this shift thanks to the investments it’s making that align the furniture category (as well as others) with those core pillars of selection, convenience and value.
Franks said she is often asked which parts of a product selection a vendor should put online, and she notes that what does well in stores may not necessarily be the same as top performers online, such as niche items. Consumers may find them more difficult to find in stores “simply because their velocity doesn’t justify the shelf space there,” she said.
But on Amazon, there are enough customers cumulatively seeking out these niche type products to make a sales impact on the “convenience” front, Franks noted how Amazon is redefining the delivery experience with its Prime-member two-day shipping promise and continues to expand on it – with same-day shipping on millions of items and one- to two-hour delivery on thousands of products in “a number of cities.”
In furniture, Amazon now allows customers to schedule delivery within a three-hour window and often times within in a day or two, she added.
For “value,” Franks pointed to the importance of Amazon product China negotiation desk manufacturer reviews because of their depth and quality.
Brick-and-mortar stores give online mattress migeof retailers a way to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace, says online bedding guru Mike Magnuson.
Magnuson, CEO of GoodBed.com, a leading mattress review site, follows developments in the online space closely, and he thinks recent brick-and-mortar moves by category leaders Casper and Tuft & Needle are smart moves.
Casper, No. 2 on Furniture Today’s list of the Top 15 bedding e-tailers, earlier this year said it is opening 15 brick-and-mortar stores in North America, while No.4 Tuft & Needle said it is planning to open brick-and-mortar stores co-branded by Amazon. Each of those retailers already has one or more brick-and-mortar stores.
“I continue to believe that distribution – and more specifically, finding the optimal balance of brick-and-mortar and online – will be one of the three major battlegrounds of the mattress industry, with the other two being marketing efficiency and customer experience,” Magnuson told Furniture Today. “And in my opinion, the optimal balance will involve at least some brick-and-mortar presence.
“For leading players, having a physical store presence gives them a way to differentiate themselves from other online mattress competitors, putting them in an elite class of online mattress brands that can be tried in person before buying.” Mike Magnuson, GoodBed.com
“In the short term, the online mattress space is getting increasingly competitive, characterized by more and more new entrants to the market,” he said. “For leading players, having a physical store presence gives them a way to differentiate themselves from other online mattress competitors, putting them in an elite class of online mattress brands that can be tried in person before buying.”
Magnuson also said that the day will come when the boom in online sales will slow, at which point online players will benefit from brick-and-mortar stores to maintain their growth.
“While overall growth continues to be very strong, leading online mattress players know there is a point somewhere on the horizon when online sales will approach saturation of the segment of consumers who are willing to buy a mattress sight unseen,” he said. “In the long run, having a brick-and-mortar presence will be critical to sustaining growth rates for leading online brands by enabling them to serve a wider segment of the market.”
Magnuson also said that physical stores give online retailer valuable insights into their customers.
“Offering a branded in-store experience allows online brands to expand on one of the biggest advantages they have over traditional brands, which is their direct connection to the consumer,”
China filing cabinet manufacturer he noted. “This direct relationship allows them to collect valuable feedback from both customers and prospects, which ultimately leads to faster cycle times in improving products and service, as well as providing invaluable long-term marketing assets in the form of ratings and reviews.”
While migeof furniture retailers continue to make strides to improve their e-commerce capabilities, there remain significant gaps between their intent and execution, according to a 2017 Benchmarking Study conducted by Blueport Commerce.
The study analyzed the websites of 104 retailers across four channels of distribution – traditional, specialty, multi-line and pure-play e-commerce – and also included a survey of retailers to assess the value of 50 individual features related to consumers’ shopping journey.
What it revealed is a significant divide between what retailers perceive as important and what they are currently executing online. For example, surveyed retailers rated the importance of online finance offers as a 72 on scale of 1 to 100, but only 15% actually offer that capability on their websites.
Correspondingly, product reviews ranked as an 80 on the same scale, the highest such feature in the Answer Shopper Questions section of the survey. However, only 38% of retailers surveyed currently offer reviews on their website.
In executing the study, Blue-port evaluated features across eight categories aligned to four key steps along the consumer’s purchase path. The four steps of what is effectively the sales funnel included: Generate Awareness, Nurture Product Interest, Encourage Shopper Intent and Convert.
The eight feature categories aligned to this journey included: Engage Shoppers, Rich Furniture Merchandising, Personalized Shopping, Shopping Across Channels, Marketing and Promotion, Answer Shopper Questions, Seamless Online Orders and Easy Ways to Pay.
Evaluating step-by-step
Each of the categories included a number of features designed to help consumers at each stage of their purchase path.
The Engage Shoppers category, representing the first step of the journey included such site features as a wishlist, gift registries, idea boards and blog content. All of these scored relatively low with survey respondents with none of the four feature sets rated above 70 in perceived value (on the 100 scale).
Correspondingly, the level of execution in this area is also fairly low, with 64% of respondents currently offering a wish list, 42% blog content, 22% a gift registry and only 3% utilizing idea boards.
When it comes to Rich Furniture Merchandising, the stage at which consumers first begin interacting specifically with product and the area where much of today’s technology discussions are focused, there is also the biggest gap between perceived value and current execution.
For example, while features such as alternate configurations (75 out of 100) and online color swatches (72.7) rated relatively high in perceived value, they scored substantially lower in their availability. Online color swatches were offered by 44% of respondents and alternate configurations by only 14%.
And while features such as augmented reality and virtual reality are widely discussed as meaningful merchandising tools, they were rated the lowest in perceived value and were only available by 3% and 2% of respondents respectively. Even a feature like 360-degree views, which rated a 64.1 in perceived value and has become common outside the furniture space, was available on only 3% of respondent sites.
Another area where furniture sites significantly lag other e-commerce segments is in the area of personalized shopping, which delivers personalized content or products related to the interests of individual shoppers. These include features such as predictive search, product recommendations, recently viewed or account login. Only predictive search was offered by more than half of survey respondents (61%), with recently viewed(29%), product recommendations (23%) and account login (7%) available at only a small number of furniture sites.
Making strides?
The one area where furniture stores are making the quickest strides appears to be in the area which the study defines as Shopping Across Channels. This includes such website features as mobile optimization, responsive design, see store inventory, persistent local store info, geolocation, salesperson recognition, make an appointment to see or buy online cart in-store, and purchase a store quote online.
The two areas where furniture retailers are most advanced are in mobile optimized websites, which 94% currently offer, and in responsive design (meaning the site adapts to the device on which it is viewed), which is avi1able on 70% of store sites.
After that however, the drop-off in cross-channel features is significant, with things like the ability to see store inventory (28%) and geolocation (24%) the only to other areas offered by more than 20% of survey respondents. This is despite the result that both of those features, as well as persistent local store info, were all rated above 70 in terms of perceived value.
When it comes to online marketing and promotion, furniture retailers appear to see little value in online features such as cart promotions, sale pricing, finance offers and email capture, at least in terms of offering those features on their sites. While each of those things ranked above 70 (on a scale of 100) in perceived value, only cart promotion (53%) and sale pricing(51%) were offered by more than half of respondents. The most notable disconnect related to financing where the feature had a perceived value of 71.8 but was only offered on 15% of surveyed sites.
When it comes to Answering Shopper Questions, at least in the digital space, China office sofa manufacturer furniture retailers have yet to adopt the most commonly used technological solutions.
Amazon is taking it slow with a new migeof furniture seller program designed to make it easier for furniture stores to participate on the giant marketplace.
According to an email correspondence between an Amazon representative involved in the new Unified Delivery with Services program and a Northwest retailer, the selling option is available “in a handful of major metro areas on the East Coast” and “scaling very slowly.”
First word of the program – which eliminates a national delivery requirement for furniture sellers and enables retailers to adjust their pricing based on added services – came during the April High Point Market (see Furniture Today, April 24, p1), when Amazon pitched the program to members of buying group Furniture Marketing Group. FMG members include many of the nation’s largest furniture store chains.
At the time, Brett Hobson, an Amazon business development representative in the furniture category, and an associate announced the new program would launch in the third quarter of this year. Furniture stores would be able to use a geofencing tool to choose ZIP codes so their Amazon listings would show only for consumers looking for delivery in regions the retailers can best service – a reversal of a previous nationwide shipping mandate.
Retailers also could adjust the pricing the consumer sees for their product on Amazon based on the service level the customer chooses – starting with a minimum white glove delivery to a dry room (vs. dropping off at the front door) up to delivery to the consumer’s room of choice and haul-away service.
In the email Amazon sent last week to the Northwest retailer, who asked not to be identified, Hobson said he wasn’t sure when the program would reach the retailer’s state, but guangzhou office chair manufacturer he said, “I can let you know as soon as that changes so that you can be an early adopter.” Asked for more detail on the program rollout, Amazon told Furniture Today, “The program is in refinement and scaling to expand to additional major cities” but declined additional comment.