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Ashley leads single-source networks to best sales and store growth in '05

By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, May 28, 2006

A catalyst for the group
Select Comfort on the grow

High Point — The fast-growing Ashley Furniture HomeStores powered the nine single-source store networks to the best sales and store growth performance of any subcategory in the Top 100.

The store networks grew sales 18.7% to $5.9 billion, which helped their share of the nation's furniture store sales pie grow to 11% from 10% a year ago. Store growth for the group also was tops in the Top 100, up a net 127 units, or 6.8% for a total of 1,990 stores or almost 24% of all stores in the list.

The networks include manufacturer-dedicated stores regardless of ownership (such as Ashley, which has 12 company-owned but mostly licensed units) as well as the franchised Norwalk — The Furniture Idea and vertically integrated Select Comfort.

A catalyst for the group

No. 2 Ashley's 73.2% sales gain and 43.1% jump in units was the catalyst, as it has been for the past few years, for the single-source network growth. And despite having roughly one-ninth of the combined single-source stores on the list (219 units at year-end), its $1.58 billion in sales accounted for more than one-quarter of the sales for combined single-source networks.

Not only was Ashley Furniture HomeStores by far the leader in store and sales growth among the dedicated chains, it posted the greatest net change in sales (up $668 million), the second-greatest percentage sales gain and the greatest net change in unit count (66 stores) of all Top 100 companies.

Select Comfort on the grow

Still, Ashley wasn't the only factor fueling the impressive growth of the single-source stores. Just like last year, a big assist came from No. 12 Select Comfort, as the airbed specialist grew sales nearly 22% to $639.2 million and added 26 stores for a total of 396 units.

The nation's largest bedding specialist also was the top gross margin performer of all Top 100 companies for which a reliable estimate could be calculated, with an average of 59.4%. It had the second-best sales per square foot average, too, at $1,264.

After scoring less-than-average growth in 2004, No. 19 Bassett Furniture Direct came up big last year for the dedicated networks, posting a 16.4% increase to $440 million while its store count grew 11.2% to 129 stores.

And No. 43 Drexel Heritage, one of the smaller networks making the Top 100, grew sales about 18% to an estimated $180 million.

Drexel Heritage and No. 16 Thomasville Home Furnishings Stores are linked to publicly held Furniture Brands International, which has not been breaking out specific results for its dedicated store networks, which are operated primarily by independent retailers.

Ashley, Select Comfort, BFD and Serta-Exclusive Sleep Shops — previously referred to as America's Mattress — all grew their store counts by double digits.

Five of the nine dedicated networks didn't perform up to par with the overall Top 100. Only one, though, No. 7 La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries, posted a sales decline, and it was slight — down less than 1% to $1.059 billion. No. 6 Ethan Allen — the oldest and once largest dedicated store network — was the only one with a store count decline, to 279 stores at the end of 2005 from 282 units the year before.

Top single-source store networks
Ranked by sales of furniture, bedding and accessories
		ESTIMATED FURNITURE, BEDDING, ACCESSORY SALES IN $ MILLIONS			NUMBER OF UNITS
RANK	COMPANY	2005	2004	PERCENT CHANGE 2004 TO 2005	2005	2004
Source: Furniture/Today's Survey of Top 100 U.S. Furniture Stores
2	Ashley Furniture HomeStores	$1,581.0	$913.0	73.2%	219	153
6	Ethan Allen	1,197.9	1,171.0	2.3	279	282
7	La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries	1,058.6	1,068.7	-0.9	308	304
12	Select Comfort	639.2	525.3	21.7	396	370
16	Thomasville Home Furnishings Stores	530.0	500.1	6.0	150	144
19	Bassett Furniture Direct	440.0	378.0	16.4	129	116
38	Serta-Exclusive Sleep Shops	210.0	195.0	7.7	400	390
43	Drexel Heritage	180.0	153.0	17.6	44	40
72	Norwalk - The Furniture Idea	99.1	95.9	3.3	65	64

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