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HFA Influencers

HFA CEO Mark Schumacher is optimistic about 2021

I love great quotations. They can capsulize thoughts and feelings or inspire. The late English author Douglas Adams said, “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” In light of last year, I could rephrase that to say, “2020 did not take us where we intended to go, but we ended up where we needed to be.” We had to scrap all our plans for HFA’s 100th anniversary last year and alter our course because of COVID. It would have been easy to subscribe to a

January 18, 2021

Policy Matters

Congressional Update: COVID relief, flammability, and Vietnam

Congress ends 2020 with a COVID-19 relief package, a ruling on furniture flammability, and an update on the Section 301 Vietnam investigation. The end of the calendar year is always a busy time in Congress as leaders work to enact priorities before breaking for the holidays. The recent end of the session for the 116th Congress was one of the more productive periods over the two-year term as it passed a massive $1.3 trillion federal government spending bill, joining it with an additional $900 billion COVID-19 relief package. COVID-19 Relief Since the CARES Act enactment in March 2020, the Home

January 13, 2021

Membership

Welcome David Gunn – HFA President

I’m David Gunn of Knight Furniture, your HFA president for 2021. I’ve never looked more forward to a new year than this one. Yet as painful as 2020 was on many levels, I did learn a few lessons. I was reminded never to take anything, or anyone, for granted. It turns out an old dog can learn new tricks when it’s necessary to survive. Good things can come from bad experiences. And it’s so much better to have a community support system in your corner when you face adversity. With a new year comes a new President of HFA, and

January 11, 2021

News

Top 5 factors to protect your buying power

The financial supply chain bubble is bursting… You’ve been more focused on the lack of physical inventory but probably haven’t realized that you’re teetering on a precarious cliff of losing the buying power you once had and won’t have the credit to continue buying from your existing vendor base. This problem caused a large furniture retailer to lose $59 million in purchasing power overnight. HFA’s CEO, Mark Schumacher, addressed this impact to furniture retailers with Michael Baron, President of Baron & Associates (specialist in credit forecasts & accounts receivable protection), Michael Hudgins, Managing Director of CIT Commercial Services (a top

January 7, 2021

Policy Matters

HFA CEO testifies before USTR on Vietnam investigation

When the United States Trade Representative announced a section 301 investigation involving Vietnam and allegations of the exportation of some wood products containing illegally harvested timber, the Home Furnishings Association has been on the record advocating a measured approach to the investigation. Our primary concern is simple. If the administration acts, as it did with China, and places wide-sweeping tariffs on wood furniture products coming out of Vietnam, it will negatively impact you, our members, and the customers you serve. This is a critical fight. Home furnishings retail has been a bright spot in our economy as sales for furniture

January 6, 2021

HFA Influencers

11 Furniture Industry Insights from Jerry Epperson for 2021

Jerry Epperson is a trusted researcher and analyst for Mann, Armistead, & Epperson with more than 40 years of furniture industry experience and a great friend to the Home Furnishings Industry. We always look forward to hosting his standing-room-only seminars in our HFA Resource Center. As you are all aware, due to the COVID-19 restrictions, we were unable to host any High Point Market seminars this fall. Still, we weren’t about to let that prevent us from having Jerry share his insights on the furniture industry’s outlook and what it means for furniture retailers in 2021. The 11 top takeaways were: 1. New and existing home sales are doing well

December 30, 2020