The U.S. furniture and bedding industry totaled revenues of $75 billion comprising some 82,567 businesses in 2013. Revenue from wholesale business operations totaled $33 billion during the same year, shared between 4,021 businesses. Manufacturing in the U.S., numbering 4,906 businesses, accounted for $25 billion of revenue in 2013. With the exception of furniture manufacturing in the U.S. which shows an annual revenue growth rate of 2.4% from 2009-2014, furniture wholesale and retail have seen an overall decline in revenue of -3.2% and -1.5%, respectively (IBISWorld, 2014). Over the next three years, as the housing market and general economy continue to stabilize after the 2008 recession, retail sales of furniture and home items are expected to grow by 1%, reaching a total $90 billion by 2017 (Euromonitor, 2013). Although the retail market for home furnishings and decorations is quite large and technically growing, its projected growth rate for the industry as a whole in the coming year is still a meager 1%. Big Box retailers like Costco and Sam’s Club have tried unsuccessfully to capture market share. Likewise, department stores, like Macy’s and JC Penney, who once thrived on furniture sales, are no longer seeing furniture as profitable. High-end suppliers of premium products have mostly disappeared, but interior designers still drive sales of the carriage trade (ABTV Industry Watch Report, 2013). U.S. furniture exports are also showing a steady increase in revenue with 4% growth in both 2012 and 2013. Total exports were valued at $1.1 billion in 2013 with the largest foreign consumers of U.S. furniture being China, Canada and Mexico. Some companies focused on manufacturing for the export market have reported gains w... ... middle of paper ... ...stry where customers are still inclined to touch and feel a product before purchase, combining traditionally preferred customer points of contact with web-based shopping channels into a single experience is claimed to be a powerful means of capturing a local market. However, ecommerce and omni-channel selling require significant investments in web development and marketing (Cory, Furniture Today). Another growing segment of the furniture industry is in exports. Several emerging markets have made the exporting of furniture more appealing. The rising middle classes in China, India, and Brazil have created a market for more high-end furniture, opening new markets to those manufacturers willing to spend the time and effort to address the challenges of exporting. In addition, Canada, Mexico, Japan and the UK represent growing export markets for the furniture industry.
The company can improve its channel strategy to enhance its current performance in one way. The company’s website is too reliant in the physical stores. The website has photos of the physical store ostensibly to help customers to connect with it. This idea seems well founded. However, the target market for any company that operates an online shopping system is not local. It transcends geographical boundaries. The company needs to consider how it can make the online shopping experience authentic and complete for customers who may never visit any of its physical stores. A website makes a company a global player. In this regard, the company needs to expand its channel strategy to take into account an expanded potential market. This shift in strategy will increase the sales the company makes.
In the early 2000’s Lowe’s was rapidly intensifying its presence nationwide. The company carried a varied assortment of home improvement products and catered to the needs of retail as well as commercial business customers. Lowe’s expanded their reach by acquiring a 41-store chain, Eagle Hardware and Garden, and engaging in a strategic alliance with HGTV to obtain a more profound existence in their market (Rouse, 2005). By 2004, Lowe’s operated almost 1,000 stores with plans to continue expansion across the nation (Rouse, 2005). The company has a core competency in helping customers meet their home improvement needs at a low price. In order to use this core competency to gain a competitive advantage, the company has focused on key functional strategies. To continue their success, Lowe’s must specifically focus on marketing, logistics, and human resource management strategies.
Northern Rush faces four small business competitors. With their shipping prices to Canada and the fluctuating exchange rates driving the price up, U.S.-based DormCo and DormItUp won’t present as much of a threat to Northern Rush as the Canadian competitors. The Canadian competitors have the advantage in their greater choice of items and colours. Both Residence Linens and Dorm Essentials give buyers the ability to customize their
Last year, Canada received 443 billion dollars in revenue from exporting goods throughout the world. Almost 54% of that was covered by Canada’s three major exports (Stat Can.) - mineral products, transportation items, and electrical equipment and machinery. While preparing theses resources for export may be difficult, it is worth it. This essay will review the large role exports play in Canadian economy by being a immense source of income, allowing Canada to maintain robust trade routes and relations throughout the world, and providing Canadians with many jobs.
Most companies chose to move their plants to locations overseas to India and China. Douglas Irwin claims, “international trade in services is in its infancy” (Hart). In other countries th...
Known as one the largest global home-furnishing retailers, IKEA currently has over 139,000 employees located in 53 countries and generates roughly 39.3 billion US dollars in annual sales (IKEA, 2014). Ingvar Kamprad began selling different types of items and founded the company in Agunnaryd, Sweden in 1943. Kamprad found that his greatest entrepreneurial opportunity was in furniture. Many households at that time were changing from receiving furniture that was handed down to desiring new, inexpensive, and stylish furniture. Kamprad was able to find a business opportunity to change the current social situation since a lot of the furniture was priced high at the time. He wanted to be able to offer his customers a wide selection of functional and well-designed furniture at a price many could afford (Bartlet & Nanda, 1996). Kamprad had a better understanding of what the customer desired and how to go about meeting those desires at prices that were lower than other furniture companies, in turn creating a competitive environment (De Kluyver & Pearce, 2011).
In addition to the change in behavior of consumer, many companies or retailers change the sales channel combinations. The greatest impact of the Web-bases electronic revolution has occurred in companies adopting the click-and-mortar approach. Click- and-mortar is one the strategy used by the companies or retailers that they continue to conduct their business in the physical locations and have added the electronic commerce component to their business activities. According to one study, 37% of United States retailers are selling through a combination of the internet, in stores and catalogs. This represents a growing demand for the business-to-customer package delivery service.
Divine furniture manufacturing company has been selling a wide range of office furniture across Canada for over 31 years now. Their expertise is mainly in high-end desks and wall cabinets made with prime quality material and craftsmanship. Though the sales were low during the initial years, the introduction of the “CEO” line of desks and wall cabinets, led to a steady growth in sales over the last five years. With most of its sales spread across Ontario and Vancouver, Divine furniture manufacturing company has also been able to make large sales transactions with U.S.A. These sales were facilitated through a distributor for Divine in the States. However, working with the distributor did not turn out to be a pleasant
The company provides a broad range of products and value-add services to around 500,000 customers with specialty construction sectors, repair and operations, infrastructure and power and leadership positions in maintenance. Due to the rapid expansion of Home Depot Supply, the retail Home Depot has suffered losses because its focus only on the supply division. Although Home Depot Supply business is budding but their returns are definitely lower than the Home Depot retail and cause a significant problem to Home Depot.
IKEA know as a unique furniture business that involved the customer’s needs with the potential on the factory floor. IKEA have owns abilities to develops its products directly based on the understanding and knowledge about the life and home challenges among the customer’s needs with low cost and high quality product. The skilled suppliers create the furniture that can adapt with the product size and constructions that enable them to produce, package and provided delivered stock in proficient way to all customers. It also put effort in developing, improvement and save resources. Apart f...
Each category will be analyzed using IKEA student info website, IKEA group corporate website, resources from University of Phoenix library and articles from magazines. The key questions that the author will address are
Furniture adds soul to a home décor as we can see that it is not merely practical and functional in its function, but has an artistic impact to it. In each generation it has its own style which comes from earlier event of its social structure. Furniture has been excelling with time to become family heirloom for the future generations.
Yasmin Hassan et al. (2010) developed a general model of retail patronage and to empirically test the relationships proposed in the model in the context of furniture market. The objectives of the study include 1) is to review existing retail patronage models and related literature 2) to develop a general framework of retail patronage behavior and 3) to test the
The main reason for which export business gets so much attention is the incredible rate at which it provides profitability to a brand. The more exports a brand makes, the more it gets to earn and so does the profit. The strength of a firm increases in correspondence to its profit rate.