Furniture Sales Growth Despite Consumer Spending Sluggishness

When the economy sinks, the big-ticket retail items are the hardest hit. That is why, for example, new car sales during the recession tanked and then rebounded after the recession.

Furniture is another purchase that people delayed during the recession (“That chair isn’t too bad now that I think about it…”). In 2009, the industry’s sales declined nearly 9 percent according to Sageworks’ data on privately held companies in the US. More severe was the drop in sales that private home furnishing stores had in 2009; sales declined by more than 15 percent. Consumers were less likely to be sprucing up their homes during the economic downturn, and—more importantly—people were not building new homes that needed to be filled.

But after the recession ended, in 2010 and even more strongly in the first part of 2011, both the furniture and home furnishing industries have significantly improved. Consumer spending may still not be high, but these industries have nonetheless experienced real growth after deep declines or at least stagnation for three years.

To read about possible causes of the sales increase and what this could mean for the housing market, visit our Forbes blog “Sales Growth Despite Consumer Spending Sluggishness.“