dailynewsnblog
Americans are back to sprucing up their homes with new furniture. After years of macroeconomic setbacks, the furniture industry is hoping a recovery will hold.
According to the National Retail Federation, consumers’ intent to purchase furniture has risen steadily over the past year after several years of softness that followed a pandemic-era surge in spending.
It’s mostly high-income consumers propping up the industry, however.
“The higher-income consumer that’s driving the majority of this is just in a much better place, and they feel like they have some visibility [on the future], and so they’re feeling more confident about spending some of the money that they have,” William Blair analyst Phillip Blee told Yahoo Finance.
Furniture stocks have staged a comeback in recent months after wintry weather and other headwinds hit the business in the first part of the year.
Shares of Wayfair (W), Bob’s Discount Furniture (BOBS), Haverty’s (HVT), Arhaus (ARHS), Williams-Sonoma (WSM), RH (RH), and Ethan Allen (ETD) have outpaced the S&P 500 (^GSPC) over the past three months, according to Yahoo Finance’s Alphaspace.
“Most furniture is purchased at life milestones,” Bob’s Furniture CEO Bill Barton said. “So you think about the young person setting up their first apartment, young couples starting a family, those life moments continue regardless, regardless of the macro, and sure enough, we’re continuing to see that.”
State of the consumer improves
Blee said consumers’ ability to have some clarity about what the future holds drives purchases of larger-ticket, discretionary items. So when a macro shock shakes consumer confidence, it weighs on furniture spending.
It’s a pattern the industry has seen before.
After the 2024 election, consumers felt “a little bit more emboldened” to make large-ticket discretionary purchases, Blee said. But when the White House announced new tariffs the following year, that momentum “immediately disappeared.”
Green shoots began to emerge again late last year, “when tariffs weren’t the end of the world,” Blee noted. But the onset of the war between the US and Iran led to another stall-out.
Now, growth is accelerating again, with sentiment improving in July despite the ongoing war. As the likelihood of a US housing market recovery is pushed further out, with mortgage rates now at the highest level since the end of July 2025 at 6.69%, some customers are deciding to revamp their current situation anyway.
Although it’s still early, Blee noted a replenishment cycle for purchases made during COVID, shifts in design aesthetics, and tariff refunds could help stabilize the industry. If gray, muted tones marked the aesthetic of 2020, he said, customers are now looking for warmer wood tones, browns, and curvier lines.
