Alex Shuford has high hopes for the industry. As the CEO of the Rock House Farm family of brands—which includes the furniture companies Century, Hancock & Moore, Hickory Chair, Highland House, Jessica Charles, Maitland-Smith, Pearson, and Cabot Wrenn—believes that opportunity will boom next year due to a generational wealth shift and pent-up demand after the post-pandemic boom. “I’m very optimistic about 2025 and rolling into 2026. I actually think we might have a good three-[to]-five-year run of stacked positive year-over-year results, because demographically, I think things [are] set up really well for it,” he tells host Dennis Scully on the latest episode of The Business of Home Podcast. “I think the story of being [a] durable [brand] right now is important, but increasingly, projects are precious for designers, so [it’s crucial to] have that ability to help those projects go smoothly, whether that’s through service, logistics [or] back-end support. Right now, when business is a little bit more precious, [it becomes a] marker for people on how you treated them when, you know, their pipeline wasn’t overflowing.”

Amid all these shifts, Shuford believes having a brick-and-mortar space is as important as ever, if not more important. “Where are people going to get a chance to access a physical item to raise their confidence level at the consumer level? The whole ecosystem relies on physical representation at some level,” he says. “Even the purest design firm that says, ‘We don’t need showrooms’ and ‘We don’t go in there,’ their client raised their trust level somewhere along the way because [that designer] physically interacted with products from one of these brands. Our big fear is that as that part of the ecosystem fragments and loses a square footprint, it actually will eventually impact the whole space.”

Elsewhere in the episode, Shuford engages in a wide-ranging conversation about the changing role of independent furniture stores, the state of competitors like RH and Arhaus, the challenges and drawbacks of e-commerce, and why he’ll soon be testing out a multibrand showroom in Las Vegas.

Crucial insight: Shuford discussed what sets Rock House Farm brands apart from retailers like RH. He explains that while brands with physical stores are creating a view of what a luxury home looks like and telling the customer what they should want, his companies have a different perspective. “We say, ‘You’re an interior designer, and you define what luxury is for you, and we give you all the tools to create that vision,’” he explains. “You define for you what’s important, and we’re here to help you make it into a reality. I think that can be really compelling, this hyperindividualism, as we go forward, and they’re going to want a place to find that.”

Key quote: “It’s a good time to be a U.S.-focused distributor, but on the flip side, we are in a weird year—election years are never healthy for anybody other than people cashing advertising checks to run political ads. But if we were looking at this year saying what we thought would happen … We’re nearly done with two quarters, and we are performing much better than we thought we would be. You kind of have to survive and get to 2025.”

This episode is sponsored by Loloi. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The Thursday Show

BOH editor in chief Kaitlin Petersen and host Dennis Scully discuss the biggest news in the design industry, including the latest in the Kim Kardashian copycat lawsuit, a look at the D&D Building’s new financial troubles, and a midyear report card for home retailers. Later, Apartment Therapy founder Maxwell Ryan joins the show to talk about winning the new SEO game.

Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.