We need to heed this wake up call
Ray Allegrezza -- Furniture Today, March 28, 2011
According to the most recent report from MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse, retail sales for furniture were up by 4% in February from January. Even better, the report says this gain was the fourth consecutive monthly gain for our category.
That would be sweet, but based on recent data from the Bureau of the Census, preliminary numbers for February suggest that furniture sales are actually likely to be down 4% from January. I guess you could call that good news, considering that furniture sales dipped almost 13% from December to January, the government said.
Even so, there is evidence that consumers are leaving the sidelines and getting back in the game.
Figures released by the Department of Commerce late in February, indicate that consumer purchases of all goods and services grew by just over 4% for the month.
Another source, the Deloitte Consumer Spending Index, which tracks consumer cash flow as a means of predicting future consumer spending, also showed a bump in February. The Deloitte Index jumped just over 4%, from an upwardly revised gain of 3.9% in January.
Based on those numbers, are we getting our fair share of that spending activity?
And before we play the "but-we-are-a-high-ticket purchase" card, consider this: Domestic car sales jumped 27% last month and represent that sector's best month since August of 2009, when the government's "cash for clunkers" program created a short-lived boom.
So, if the consumer is getting back into the game, are we?
Leggett & Platt's Mark Quinn showed me a blog he wrote that contained the following: "Just think about the incredible story they (furniture retailers) have to tell. Furniture helps you express who you are, it makes your home comfortable both physically and in the spiritual sense, and it adds a lot of function to everyday life. Most importantly, furniture helps to make the house a home and isn't that a fantastic story to tell? So how often do you hear it? Maybe I don't watch enough television but I really don't see many ads that focus on the real emotional aspect of furniture."
Leave it to a bedding guy to give us a well-deserved wake up call!
To read Mark's blog in its entirety, go to http:// mquinn.com/.
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