west elm

Furniture retailers have been on a joy ride since the pandemic. Armed with Covid stimulus checks, consumers took to the streets to refresh, repurpose and redecorate their homes after months trapped inside where their home’s shortfalls became painfully obvious.

Furniture retailers happily enjoyed the windfall. Their sales grew from $64.2 billion in 2019 to $79.9 billion in 2022, a 24% increase.

But now the bloom is off the rose, and furniture retailers must adjust to a new normal. Through the first half of this year, furniture retail has declined by 4.4% from last year, not a big drop so far, but continued month-after-month declines are in the offing.

Consumers have spent most of their savings from the pandemic, according to the Federal Research Bank of San Francisco. Households started with an accumulated excess savings of $2.1 trillion, but now have less than $190 billion left, and by the end of the third quarter, it is expected to be fully depleted.

Combined with credit card debt that now stands at over $1 trillion, rising interest rates and consumers’ budgets squeezed by inflation to cover day-to-day expenses, furniture retailers that deal in discretionary purchases are in a precarious position.

Already, three prominent furniture manufacturers and retailers – Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, Klaussner Home Furnishings and United Furniture Industries, parent of Lane Home Furnishings – have shuttered.

Similarly vertically integrated Ashley Furniture Industries is not about to let the same thing happen. It recently rebranded stores from Ashley HomeStore to Ashley and is refreshing its fleet of U.S. and Canada stores – 118 company-owned and 850 licensee-owned and operated in North America. Its website remains AshleyFurniture.com.

The new store designs were unveiled in the Atlanta, Los Angeles, Orlando, Tampa and Salt Lake