Furniture store customers are left in the lurch in the US with many shops closing down. Cases have emerged where stores have not paid back customer’s deposits or delivered the furniture.
Retailers such as Lane Home Furnishings, Eclectic Furniture, and Affordable Furniture have all closed down without refunding customer’s deposits or delivering their furniture.
Customers in turn are panicking about their missing deposits because of the lack of response.
According to wftv.com, the best bet for customers is using a credit card for deposits, as they can dispute a charge for repayment. When customers pay cash they have to file charges in a bankruptcy court, a long process that only salvages a portion of the deposit.
The economic downturn has had a negative impact on furniture stores. Declining home sales and reductions in big-ticket discretionary purchases have hit home furniture businesses.
According to STLtoday.com, the US Census Bureau found home furnishing and furniture stores garnered sales worth $8.7 billion in November 2008, a decrease of 11% from the $9.8 billion sales garnered in November 2007.
Jackie Hirschhaut, vice president of marketing for the American Home Furnishings Alliance, a major trade association for furniture manufacturers in the US, told STLtoday.com: “For furniture retailers, it’s pretty bleak right now.”
Some retailers have resorted to payroll cuts in a bid to assuage low furniture sales.
Alan Richardson, owner of English Living, an upscale European furniture store, told STLtoday.com: “We saw what was happening in the housing market. We knew we were facing something, and we had to make some significant changes. We trimmed 40% of our payroll in preparation for what we thought was a storm coming. The storm came, and we thought by now, we’d be out of it.”
As per STLtoday.com, bad locations and run-of-the mill merchandise could further aggravate the problem for furniture store owners.
