Free Newsletter
We’re in a drought. Not just weather wise, but consumer retail wise.
The most recent retail sales figures shared by the Department of Commerce in July for the month of June painted a bleak picture for the home furnishings segment. The numbers showed sales at home furnishings and furnishings retailers totaled an estimated adjusted $11.084 billion, down 4% compared with $11.55 billion in June of last year. Comparing the data from May’s adjusted $11.013 billion, sales for our industry dipped 0.6%.
How’s it looking compared with last year’s figures? Year-to-date, the home furnishings and furniture retail segment’s $64.39 billion in sales was off by 7% compared with the same period last year.
Turning specifically to the bedding market, the International Sleep Products Assn. recently issued its industry trends report for 2023, and it delivered the news that the bedding segment has posted back-to-back years of sales declines.
For all of 2023, the total market for mattresses and stationary foundations sold in the U.S. dropped 6.8% to $9.8 billion from $10.6 billion the prior year. By units, we saw an 8% drop to 39.7 million last year from 43.2 million in 2022.
The bright side of the report? The average unit selling price of a mattress increased 2.1% in 2023 from the AUP in 2022.
Publicly traded bedding companies — including Culp, Leggett & Platt, Sleep Number, Purple and Tempur Sealy International — have all struggled through the latest rounds of earnings reports. Three of the five have announced major cost-cutting initiatives that are currently underway.
I’ve been writing this column for several years now, and most of you know I’m don’t typically share a doom-and-gloom outlook. However, this feels very different than the past several years. This slump is likely to weigh over us through the end of the year and perhaps beyond the first quarter of next year.
The 2024 presidential election is looming. This year’s election is shaping up to be a doozy, and the rancor stands to deflate consumer confidence. Interest rates are still elevated, causing housing to stall, and consumers are spending discretionary dollars on things other than furniture and mattresses. Vacation, anyone?
What to do?
The traditional sales holidays, I’m told, are helping some retailers weather the drought. Other’s say, it’s a daily battle with door swings missing in action. For their part, mattress makers are feeling the struggle along side their retail partners and are armed at the summer Las Vegas Market with products that are designed to help entice consumers back into stores and onto e-commerce sites to spend on better sleep.
While we’re all gathered in the desert this week, we’re sure to share ideas, brainstorm strategies and devise some creative ways to manage the things we can while keeping an eye on the external factors beyond our control.
I’m on the prowl for smart product ideas that will help sleep retailers navigate these precarious times. I’m eager to uncover creative new approaches to the business — both product and otherwise — to weather our challenging times.
I’ll be sure to share what piqued my interest.
Happy market!
