When Georgia Furniture Mart, one of the largest and best-known dealers in the Atlanta metropolitan area, recently announced it was shutting down, it joined an ever-growing list of furniture retailers that are closing, filing for bankruptcy or going out of business.
While some have been large national players like Big Lots, Value City Furniture and American Freight, there are dozens of local and regional independent stores that are also closing. Furniture Today recently compiled a list of 17 such dealers, and no doubt there are plenty more disappearing under the radar even if no hard numbers are available.
To anyone curious about when the seemingly never-ending slowdown in the furniture business will have real consequences, wonder no more: It’s now.
The post-pandemic pall that hung over the furniture and home furnishings business was supposed to have cleared up by now, and everyone expected interest rates to come down and mortgages to become more affordable. They haven’t. Then there’s the war in the Middle East that has caused the prices of staples like gas and food to skyrocket—which means less money left over for credenzas.
“The combination of elevated mortgage rates and home prices has pushed housing turnover rates near historic lows,” Zak Stambor, a senior analyst for eMarketer, posted in April after a discussion on the subject with The New York Times. “And if people aren’t moving, there are fewer consumers in the market for a new couch or dining table.”
Stambor recited some pretty disturbing statistics in his post. “You can see that dynamic in the numbers,” he wrote. “Sales at furniture stores are down about 8 percent since 2022, and this year is off to another sluggish start, with sales in the first two months down 4.8 percent YoY.”
Given all of this, the steady flow of independent dealers hanging it up is to be expected. What’s not so certain is when all of this begins to let up and the furniture retail sector levels off again.
Georgia Furniture Mart first opened in 1986, and at one time called itself “one of the fastest-growing furniture retailers in the country.” Its going-out-of-business sale is currently in process at the company’s two stores, in the Atlanta suburbs of Kennesaw and Norcross, though no final closing date has been announced.
“We are deeply thankful to everyone who has been part of this journey and entrusted us with their homes,” said founder Michael Hall in a statement. “While this chapter is coming to a close, the memories and relationships we’ve built will always remain.”
The recent closings run the gamut in size, positioning and geography. Some are independent legacy businesses, including Grand Gallery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which had been in business since 1934 and was an Ethan Allen licensee. Others, like Country Willow in the New York suburb of Bedford Hills, were much newer, having originally opened in 1996.
But while current business conditions may have been the final straw, many of the stores had one thing in common: There was simply nobody who wanted to continue operating the business. That is the case with Greenbaum Home Furnishings in Bellevue, Washington, which said its second-generation owners were retiring, prompting the closing.
A family business closing because there was nobody in the family who wanted to continue running it is an old story—as old as business itself. But the wave of furniture dealer closings we’re seeing now is something else entirely, and it’s not likely to stop anytime soon given there’s no end in sight to the current furniture malaise.
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Warren Shoulberg is the former editor in chief for several leading B2B publications. He has been a guest lecturer at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business; received honors from the International Furnishings and Design Association and the Fashion Institute of Technology; and been cited by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and other media as a leading industry expert. His Retail Watch columns offer deep industry insights on major markets and product categories.
