by Pockets of strong housing development, relocations help boost fortunes of some retailers
HIGH POINT — As expected, Labor Day received mixed reviews from retailers around the country, with some saying sales were up, some saying they were down and others just saying they were pleased with overall holiday weekend traffic and sales.
As always, the pool of retailers we spoke with and who share information was extremely limited representing a fraction of the overall retail marketplace.
But a key message was that holiday weekends remain a critical driver of sales for the entire industry. For one, they are heavily promoted in a way that continues to draw traffic. Secondly, consumers have come to expect holiday weekend events just as they do extremely aggressive sales on Black Friday.
Rachel Stewart, chief executive officer of Auburn Hills, Michigan-based Gardner-White Furniture, said that customers tend to wait for big tent pole holidays like Labor Day, “And they deliver; that is my big takeaway. We very aggressively market these events and it works.”
While not revealing specific numbers, she said that the holiday was strong, with activity across all major categories.
“There’s not any great magic,” she said of the traditional sales event, adding that as a retailer, she is never quite entirely satisfied. “It’s very similar to what others are doing, but it starts earlier and earlier and ends a little later.”
Others interviewed for this story said that their events are starting earlier. At Tyson Furniture in Black Mountain, North Carolina, the sale started toward the end of August and continued through the holiday weekend.
“The week before and the week after Labor Day has been better than what we normally do,” said Joe Tyson, president of the single-store retailer his father started in 1946.
He said the company began an aggressive promotion for the holiday just as back to school sales season was kicking into gear that included a mix of newspaper, TV and social media advertising.
“We actually advertised and got a little more aggressive than we normally have,” he told Home News Now. “And it paid off pretty well. We had lots of traffic and lots of sales.”
He estimated that sales were up as high as 20% from last year, thanks largely to the aggressive promotions that brought people through the door.
“The traffic this year was better than last year,” he said. “We are in a market that is sort of unique in that it is healthy. We are in a market where there is a lot of in migration and in a market where people have a lot of money.”
“It was really good, it was substantial,” Tyson added, noting that product segments did well across the board. “For us, the higher-end categories really did more business than anything else. Our price range is from Stickley at the top to Bassett, where we do our volume business.”
Jamestown, North Carolina-based Furnitureland South typically doesn’t have a Labor Day sales event. Instead it promotes its Awesome August sales event that starts in late July and continues through Labor Day. Jeff Harris, president, told Home News Now that this past August was the strongest sales month in the company’s 45-plus-year history with sales activity in all major categories.
“It was incredible and with Labor Day weekend, the momentum continued through yesterday,” he said of sales through the middle of this past week. “We have seen some incredible traffic and some incredible business. There are just a lot of positive things going on here.”
He noted that while the company doesn’t typically offer steep discounts, he said it gets some assistance from its dealers to help sharpen price points during the month of August.
“A lot of our brands, they support us with a 3%-5% discount, and we pass that along to the customer when we can,” he said of the brand-new, special-order product.
He also said the store’s success was because of the participation of its sales and design consultants, who are on hand just about every day during the month of August to be available for clients.
“Our consumers have kind of been programmed to know that this is one of our biggest promotions of the year,” Harris said, noting he has high expectations he sets for his team. “We have been doing it so long that it has become part of our mode of operation. Those expectations were there, and we got complete buy-in from our team.”
And while housing sales, both new construction and existing home sales have been down because of current interest rate levels, there are pockets of growth that are causing a boost for Furnitureland and other retailers. For example, Harris noted that a lot of people are relocating to the Carolinas who end up being within a couple of hundred miles of the store.
“We can service those customers at the level that we strive for, which is world-class service,” Harris noted. “Whether you look at Wilmington and the coast, whether you look at Raleigh, whether you look at Charlotte, whether you look at Asheville or right here in the Triad, where we are located, all those areas are seeing significant growth in the real estate sector. And when you see that kind of growth, you know that has an impact on what we do here at Furnitureland.”
Growth in the South Zaneville area of eastern-central Ohio where Coconis Furniture is based is helping drive business for the retailer, including the recently concluded Labor Day event. In addition to four stores under its own name, it also operates a local Ashley store. Kim Tewalt, an assistant store manager, who also helps with marketing, told Home News Now that Coconis had strong traffic and sales for the holiday weekend.
“Our Labor Day sale went through the whole weekend,” she said, noting that the company advertises its sale through a mailer, on local TV and through social media. “We actually saw quite a bit of traffic and it was good for us. We were pretty happy with it. … Saturday was a huge day for us.”
Among the strongest categories were upholstery, including stationary and reclining, as well as mattresses. Custom-made Amish wood furniture is also popular among its customer base.
She said that the retailer also is seeing a trend where people are spending large amounts with orders of more than $10,000 and on up to $20,000 and $30,000.
Residential growth in its market area also is fueling business.
“There is a lot of new development west of us and a lot of businesses that are bringing in traffic from that direction,” Tewalt said. “We know that there has been some growth, and I have to believe it is people moving to the area either building (new homes) or buying existing homes.”
“It definitely feels like we are on an upswing,” she said of the development activity that is having a positive impact on sales regardless of the bump from the holiday weekend. “We are definitely seeing more foot traffic, bigger tickets and higher closings. We are definitely in that time of year where it is ramping up.”
Bacon’s Furniture, which fell victim to Hurricane Ian two years ago this month, has spent much of the last two years rebuilding its 129,000-square-foot business, including a 40,000-square-foot Ashley store and main 45,000 square-foot Bacon’s showroom, both of which were destroyed by the storm. Having reopened after an arduous rebuilding process, the stores have since been welcomed by the greater Port Charlotte, Florida, community, where the retailer is based.
“I didn’t know if it was going to survive or if I was going to close it down,” owner and president Bill Bacon told Home News Now. “We had so many people that wanted us to stay and it is really rewarding after all these years. People really did care about the business and I said, ‘Shoot, I have had three offers to sell out and I didn’t take any of them.’ I decided to stay and it means a lot to me that our community respects us.”
That said, he noted that Bacon’s had a strong Labor Day sales event, “not a great one, but a good one. We are up against low figures from last year because we were closed and didn’t do any business last year because we were in major construction.”
He said what did particularly well this year was motion furniture, thanks in part to interest in the category and a number of strong brands such as La-Z-Boy, Barcalounger, Stressless, Parker House and Flexsteel, among others.
“We have them all,” he said, a reference to the retailer’s history of strong brands on its floor.
Miskelly Furniture said that it was a couple of hundred customers off in terms of foot traffic for its Labor Day weekend event of Friday through Monday, with the overall promotion starting earlier in typical retail fashion alluded to earlier in this story. That caused it to have an overall 6% drop in estimated sales.
“We were hoping for a larger traffic count, but it just didn’t happen,” said Mark Waters, chief operating officer, of activity at its eight locations, including a Miskelly Sleepstore in Flowood, Mississippi.
Still there were some bright spots, including a 16% increase in web sales from the previous year, an increase in clearance store sales and a triple-digit increase in its mattress sales.
“Mattress store sales were fantastic,” Waters said. “A lot of consumers came in for our mattress buyouts. … So we did really good with some key categories.”
Upholstery remains another strong area of the business, with strong sales in the category throughout the year.
He said what hurt the most was an 11% drop at its main store in Pearl, Mississippi.
“The truth of the matter is that if store traffic would have been the same as last year, we would have exceeded last year (in sales),” he said. “But with 200, 220 customers off, it cost us the number we needed.
“We will revisit what it is going to take to bring customers through our door. And we will adjust to make sure we will get them through for the rest of the year.”
