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Shop Talk

West Creek helps retailers say yes to customers

The words “no credit needed” generate a powerful attraction in the retail industry, according to Dan White, national account manager for West Creek, a new Home Furnishings Association solution partner. West Creek is a financial firm that provides rent-to-own services directly to consumers but engages them in your furniture store. Millions of Americans are “credit invisible,” White says, noting that 66 percent of millennials don’t have credit cards. “They’re not bad with credit, they’re just not using credit,” he says. Millions more have inaccurate or incomplete information on their credit reports or have more borrowing capacity than they’re given credit for, no pun

September 20, 2019

HFA members from Jacksonville's Ashley HomeStore deliver mattresses to families displaced by a fire earlier this year.

Shop Talk

Fire takes their home, HFA member gives them hope

There wasn’t much time to grab anything – clothes, family photos – even a pair of shoes. When a fire broke out in July at the Calloway Cove Apartment complex in Jacksonville, Fla., residents barely escaped with their lives. Five children and two adults were injured in the fire. Some of those children are still in the hospital recovering from burns. Two months after nearly a dozen families were displaced, a Home Furnishings Association member is bringing some semblance of normalcy to their lives. Ashley Furniture HomeStore, which owns stores in northeast Florida and southeast Georgia, donated 26 beds to

September 19, 2019

“Most customers just understand it as another recycling fee, so there’s no arguing about it,” Dan Pedersen of Al’s Furniture in Fresno, Calif., says.

Policy Matters

HFA members turn recycling obligation into opportunity

[This story first appeared in the September 2019 Government Update from the association.] As Kevin Matthews sees it, California’s mattress recycling program adds a little more to the cost of doing business in a high-cost state. It increases the workload, according to Dan Pedersen. Yet, both try to manage the program effectively or even turn it into an opportunity. California launched Bye Bye Mattress in 2016 to stem the flow of the bulky items into landfills and to reduce illegal dumping. The program, operated by the Mattress Recycling Council (MRC) in Alexandria, Va., puts significant responsibility on retailers who sell

September 17, 2019

Badcock & More Waynesboro store grand opening

Shop Talk

Badcock celebrates 2 new corporate stores

Home Furnishings Association member Badcock Furniture &more celebrated the addition of two company stores – Waynesboro, Va., and Roanoke Rapids, N.C., – to its growing list of locations throughout the Southeast. Rob Burnette, CEO and president of Badcock; Bill Pou, executive vice president; Mitchell Stiles, vice president of dealer retail operations; and Justin Garner, vice president of corporate stores, were in Virginia and North Carolina on Aug. 28 for the grand openings. Both stores have been open since June 26 and business has been brisk, store managers say. “The community has been great to us,” says Machan Harris, manager of

September 17, 2019

Policy Matters

Retail panel will focus on safety at furniture conference

The furniture industry will focus on product safety at a conference in Colfax, N.C., Oct. 2-3. The event will include a retail panel with strong participation by Home Furnishings Association members. The American Home Furnishings Alliance 2019 Regulatory Summit will also feature Commissioner Peter Feldman of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, who will share updates on regulatory action on the furniture stability issue. Accidental tip-overs cause injuries and deaths among children every year. The Home Furnishings Association emphasizes safety and has asked CPSC to set a mandatory standard for furniture stability. HFA urges retailers to provide customers with tip-restraint kits

September 16, 2019

News

New furniture orders continue a familiar slide

June represented a new month for furniture retailers to tell what’s becoming the same old story: New orders for the month experienced a 6 percent decline from orders in June of 2018 – the fifth consecutive month this year for falling orders. The numbers come from accounting and consulting firm Smith Leonard. The company’s Furniture Insights surveys residential furniture manufacturers and distributors. June’s drop is steeper than the 3 percent decline in May but is better than the 9 percent drop in April. Year-to-date, new orders are off 3 percent compared to the same period in 2018 with 70 percent

September 13, 2019