Congratulate yourself for surviving last year
Jerry Epperson -- Furniture Today, April 13, 2009
Congratulations on surviving! If we were an army, it would look like most of us had lost limbs or at best, suffered a flesh wound. I almost hate to discuss the statistics from late last year but it might be helpful to understand the magnitude of what has happened.
Before we begin, the declines we will be reporting are unprecedented in my four decades in the home furnishings industry. I may run out of the more correct descriptive phrases or words like collapse, free-fall, decimated, cratered, tanked or shocking, so please understand when I just say “declined” or “fell.”
The retail numbers are from the Department of Commerce and, as usual, we believe they are reporting numbers that are better than the reality. Furniture store sales in the fourth quarter fell 12.4%, while the more inclusive “total consumption of furniture and bedding” dropped 8.9% in the fourth quarter and 4.5% for the year. That was the good news.
Domestic wood furniture shipments fell 25.7% in the fourth quarter and 17.7% for all of 2008. Imported wood furniture declined a mere 14.2% in the quarter with a 19.3% drop from China partially offset by a most impressive 13.3% gain — yes, gain — from Vietnam.
In the fourth quarter, China shipped three times as much wood furniture as Vietnam, but the gap is narrowing. We would rather not mention the 35.5% decline from Canada.
For the year, wood furniture imports fell 9.7% with China down 14.1% and Vietnam up 19.3%.
Upholstered furniture did no better. In the quarter, domestic upholstery dropped 23.7% and imports were off 17.2%. The largest foreign source of upholstered furniture, China, was down 11.5%, but Mexico dove like an Acapulco cliff diver by 49.6%. Neither Italy (down 30.5%) nor Canada (down 40.2%) did much better.
For the year, domestic upholstery shipments dropped 14.4% and imports fell 10.3%. China slid 4.7% in 2008, while our second largest source, Mexico lost 37%.
Even the mattress industry — the most stable segment of the home furnishings industry — saw domestic shipments decline 22.8% in the quarter and 11.8% for the year. Domestic mattresses make up more than 95% of those sold in the United States, but even the small quantity of mattress imports fell 10.8% in the December quarter.
Please keep saying to yourself that this is in the past and you survived, like walking away from a car wreck or divorcing your first wife and still owning a wallet.
Retail demand appeared to bounce upward a bit in the second half of February, and we can name importers, manufacturers and retailers who are exceeding their 2008 sales in the March quarter. Just not many of them.
