September Furniture Orders Fall

November 30, 2010  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in economic news on December 1, 2010

New furniture orders for September 2010 fell 3 percent September 2009 levels, the High Point accounting and consulting firm Smith Leonard reported Tuesday.

According Smith Leonard's monthly Furniture Insights survey of residential furniture manufacturers and distributors, this was the first month-over-month decline in new orders since September 2009, when orders were 10 percent lower than September 2008 orders.

"From most of the conversations we had during September, the results were not a total surprise," Smith Leonard Managing Partner Ken Smith noted. "The results for the month by survey participant varied quite a bit, with some participants showing some nice gains, while some were off significantly. For the month, some 66 percent of the participants reported lower orders compared to last year.

Year-to-date, the new orders were still up 6 percent. Through September 2009, new orders were off 18 percent from the same period in 2008.

September shipments rose 6 percent compared to September 2009, when they were off 14 percent from September 2008.

"As with last month, we suspect some of the shipments increase relates to arrival of imported products," Smith said. "Approximately 59 percent of the participants reported increased shipments for the month."
 
Shipments were up 8 percent through 2010's first nine months over the same period a year ago. Shipments at the same point last year were off 19 percent below the same period in 2008. Backlogs fell 3 percent from August reflecting the fact that shipments exceeded orders. Backlogs remained 7 percent higher than September a year ago, down from an 18 percent increase last month.

Receivables rose 2 percent over August, in line with the 4 percent increase in shipments. Receivables were up 13 percent over last September, out of line with the 6 percent increase in shipments, but were down from a 15 percent increase reported last month.

Inventories increased 1 percent over August and were 18 percent higher than September 2009. This was up from a 14 percent increase reported last month. From what we have heard, the increase is most likely caused by management seeing increased orders in the spring and summer, adjusting order rates for imports, then business began to fall off again. Inventory levels will need to be watched closely in the coming months.

The number of factory and warehouse employees was flat with August and up 2 percent from last September. August employees were 2 percent higher than August 2009. September 2009 employees were 17 percent lower than September 2008.

Factory and warehouse payrolls were up 4 percent over last September and were 11 percent higher year-to-date. Last year, payrolls were 20 percent lower year-to-date than the same period in 2008.

"Last month, we noted that after business had shown signs of improvement through July, business had fallen off somewhat in August and September," Smith said in summary. "The results of our survey seemed to validate that. With the first decline in orders, comparing current month to prior year, since September 2009, the results were disappointing but not unexpected. It will be interesting to see what the October results show, but based on comments at Market, we do not expect to see a lot of improvement, other than possibly timing of Market orders."

Smith noted that the latest consumer confidence reports show improvement; and retail sales in general seem to be picking up.

"We do need to remember that furniture is still selling, just not enough to go around the whole industry ...," Smith said. "We have said it all too often over the last couple of years, but the key in today's world is to hang in there. Most feel that 2011 may be more of the same as 2010. Let€™s hope that the September results were not the beginning of more declines."