by New store footprints show how many dealers are taking steps to grow their business despite the many challenges facing the industry
HIGH POINT — Absolutely no one we’ve spoken within the industry has made the claim that business is good right now. On the contrary, it’s soft to the point of being as challenging as during the financial crisis, if not worse, at least according to industry resources selling to retailers around the U.S.
Store closings announced by the likes of The Room Place, Sam Levitz, Conn’s, Badcock and Big Lots are just one sign of how challenging the market has been.
The challenges are also backed up by figures published by the U.S. Department of Commerce that show year-over-year furniture store sales not only continue to trail most other sectors, but they also have been down for each of the past 17 months. It’s obviously a sign that spending on furniture is not a priority for most consumers, especially when compared to other areas ranging from dining out to vacation and other travel spending.
It thus leads the question of when the industry can expect to come out of this period of malaise and what things will look like on the other side.
Yet based on recent store openings and growth plans announced by some major retailers, it appears many are either doing well, or preparing for a rebound once business comes back, perhaps after election season.
Here are several examples of major retailers that have opened new stores in recent months:
+ Raymour & Flanigan opened a new store in the Somerville, Massachusetts, area just outside Boston and another location in the western Massachusetts town of Pittsfield, just across the border from New York state. Both stores expect to get major traffic in and around their respective areas, including Pittsfield, which is the third largest city in this part of the state. The retailer also is growing sales through its Business to Business program, which serves the hospitality, senior living and food service industries with tables and commercial seating such as chairs, bar stools and booths.
+ This past April, City Furniture opened its newest location in the Tampa area of Florida. Located in Clearwater, it is the second of several locations planned for the area with three others on tap to open in Sarasota and Wesley Chapel and downtown Tampa between the summer of 2025 and early 2026. The two latest Tampa stores are among what company Chairman Keith Koenig describes as some of the most beautiful among its 37 locations overall, which will grow to more than 40, including a planned location in Daytona in the not-too-distant future.
+ Bob’s Discount Furniture recently announced it is planning to open seven more stores later this year, expanding its presence on the West Coast, the central part of the U.S. and the East Coast. This is above and beyond its seven store openings this past spring. Locations that had grand opening events in time for the Memorial Day weekend included Avon, Indiana; Chesapeake, Virginia; Dulles, Virginia; Glendora, California; Leominster, Massachusetts; Springfield, Virginia; and Burlington, Massachusetts, a relocation. As part of these events, it issued two Random Acts of Kindness checks of $2,500 each to two local charitable organizations or schools. With 28 locations, California remains the state with the most Bob’s stores, followed by New York with 20 locations. This is followed by Pennsylvania with 15 locations, Illinois and New Jersey with 13 each and Massachusetts with 12 stores, according to the company’s website.
+ Arhaus has expanded its footprint this year with three new stores, including one in Greenwich, Connecticut, and two in California, opened roughly three weeks apart between late May and early June, plus another store in Palo Alto that just recently opened. This follows the opening of three locations in California this past December, making it the state with the highest number of Arhaus locations, 12, followed by Ohio, with 9, Florida with 8 and Texas with 7. The company also has an aggressive growth plan ahead with as many as 12 new showrooms planned to open this year, part of a plan to boost its footprint above the 92 traditional showrooms in place by the end of 2023 to have more than 165 showrooms over time, in addition to more than 50 Design Studios.
+ La-Z-Boy also has expanded its store footprint of late. In its latest conference call for its fourth quarter and full fiscal year ended April 27, it said it plans to have about 400 La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries over the next several years, up from 355 at the end of its recently ended fiscal year. The 355 is up from six new store openings and nearly a dozen acquisitions during the course of the year, which brings the number of total company-owned stores to 187. During the call, the company also revealed plans to open 12-15 new stores, not including any acquisitions, mostly in the second half of the new fiscal year as part of a multimillion-dollar capital investment plan.
+ Havertys Furniture also has an aggressive store growth plan. As of Dec. 31, 2023, it had a total of 124 locations in 86 cities and 16 states. This calendar year, it has added to its retail footprint with a store that opened in Durham, North Carolina, in February, one that opened in Southaven, Mississippi, in March. And at least three more are planned to open in Florida during the second and third fiscal quarters. And during its fourth quarter, it has plans to open another several stores including one in Houston, one in Concord, North Carolina, one in Dayton, Ohio, and one just south of Richmond, Virginia. As with its other locations, these stores will offer a wide range of case goods and upholstery for its everyday customers while also catering to the needs of designers and their clients, with special order business that increases the average ticket substantially.
+ And of course there is the Ashley store footprint that’s expanding in new and existing markets around the U.S. and the world. Each week Home News Now gets press releases from the company about the expansion of its Ashley licensees, many of which are converting existing stores and opening new ones in the updated Ashley 7.0 design footprint.
Other expansions this year have included American Furniture Warehouse’s fourth Arizona store in Tucson, Morris Furniture’s four new stores in Ohio along with several other remodels and Woodstock Furniture & Mattress’ new location in Woodstock, Georgia, which is its sixth store overall.
None of this downplays the fact that some large players are extremely challenged by market malaise. In addition, many independent stores with long histories are also closing, largely because of the fact owners are ready to retire and there are no future family members coming up the ranks to take over the business. Perhaps they saw that the furniture business isn’t easy and don’t want to work the long and often unforgiving hours they saw their parents or grandparents working. Or perhaps they just pursued another career path entirely.
But even these shifts are creating new opportunities not just for the largest players in and outside their core markets but also for those retailers that are opening stores in tough times nonetheless. That said, most store openings that require many months, and even years of planning, aren’t timed around how the economy will be at any given moment, making this a calculated risk by anyone’s standards.
Still, it appears that these companies whose openings are occurring during the most uncertain of times will be positioned to be stronger than ever when things do turn around.
Is your company positioning itself for growth with new stores planned to open now or in the near future? If so, we’d love to hear your story. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Tom Russell at tom@homenewsnow.com or Ray Allegrezza at ray@homenewsnow.com with information about your latest expansion.
