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HIGH POINT — Times are tough at the retail level for purveyors of home furnishings.
The sales snapshots produced by the Department of Commerce tell that story monthly, and retailers report traffic has sagged. While average tickets are up and the shoppers who do visit usually pull the trigger on a purchase, the demand isn’t what it was as recently as last year.
Many retailers are deciding now is a good time to get out, some due to retirement with no succession plan in place, while others were due to the state of business. Here’s a look at some:
On Sept. 19, Louis Shanks Furniture in Austin, Texas, announced that it is working with Planned Furniture Promotions to handle the going out of business process and will close its last two stores, in its hometown and in San Antonio.
Earlier this month, Hatboro, Pa.-based Gamburg’s Furniture announced that it is going out of business after 94 years and four generations, as owners Sidney and Joyce Gamburg are retiring.
While it might not have made the decision on its own, furniture manufacturer and Top 100 retailer Mitchell Gold & Bob Williams closed, laid off all workers and is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings after its funding was cut off in August. Calls to multiple retail locations went straight to an automated system, which funneled callers to a call center.
The closing brick-and-mortar chapter for Bed Bath & Beyond was written earlier this year, as it went into bankruptcy and closed all of its stores. However, its intellectual assets were acquired by Overstock.com, which has since rebranded its online presence to Bed Bath & Beyond.
In May, Furniture Today reported on a trio of stores that were closing, including 123-year-old Rominger’s Southern Furniture Co. of Winston-Salem, N.C.; West Fargo, N.D.’s Furniture for Less; and Sofas Unlimited of Hampden Township, Pa.
Roesing Furniture, a fourth-generation retailer that had been in business since 1902, announced in January that it was closing as owner Bob Roesing was retiring.
And while it made the announcement that it was going out of business in November, leaders from Top 100 retailer Weekends Only indicated that they expected the going-out-of-business sales to go into early 2023. Recently, a former Weekends Only facility was purchased and reoutfitted to be a showroom and distribution center by Mueller Furniture.
