Lackluster housing market hurts furniture stores
“We did very well. very well,” says Nadia figuring
she saved about 75%.
“They wanna sell everything in there so they’re looking to make a deal whenever they can,” adds Anthony.
Throughout south Florida the housing bust has been taking its toll on the furniture industry. Fewer home sales means fewer homes to furnish. And those who already have houses probably don’t have the equity they once did to re-model their homes.
“The whole marketplace has changed,” says Anand Patel, who now owns the Brandon store on Lake Worth road, “People are just not buying furniture as readily as they did two years ago, or even a year ago.”
Patel recently purchased the Brandon name and retail space when the company went out of business. Since then, he’s been selling off the inventory from more than a dozen of their former stores at deep discounts.
Patel hopes to survive the recent furniture free-fall by changing the way they do business. He intends to let customers name their price, hold weekend auctions, and slash profit margins in favor of volume.”
“You know, we’re happy to make a few dollars on a sofa where we were making a few hundred dollars on a sofa before,” says Patel.
For other stores it’s apparently too late. The Lazy Boy store location also on Lake Worth road has closed. Signs dotting the road in the area say that nearby Park’s Furniture will soon be closing. Even the well-known Carl’s furniture location on Palm Beach Lakes boulevard is shutting its doors citing a one-two punch of road construction and a tough economy.
“Typically, this is Memorial Day weekend, we’d see a number of customers this weekend and we’ve probably seen about half of those,” says regional manager Sean Powers.
“You know when you have a store closing sale along with a Memorial Day weekend, you know the store should be booming.”
Should be, but it wasn’t. Powers says despite the heavily-advertised sale, and offering substantial discounts, business was off 50%.
Tags: anand patel, auction, buying furniture, doors, dy, economy, furniture, furniture industry, furniture store, furniture stores, housing market, lakes boulevard, lazy boy, luster, memorial day, memorial day weekend, n store, nearby park, pace, palm beach, palm beach lakes, profit margins, regional manager, retail space, road construction, signs, Sofa, south florida, store location, substantial discounts, urn, whRelated posts
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