Charting the Progress of Survival: Furniture and Home Furnishings Stores - Ratio of Store Openings and Closings as a Percent of Total Stores at Start of the Year*

January 10, 2020  by Laurie Northington in General   

In what’s considered by many as the ‘Retail Apocalypse,’ retail store closings in 2019 are on pace to exceed closings in 2018. According to a report from investment banking firm UBS, an estimated 75,000 stores that sell clothing, electronics and furniture will close by 2026. This is the first factoid in a series of five factoids that studies a March 2019 report from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistics of U.S. Business, shining the light on challenges furniture and home furnishings stores have faced over the last 10+ years and continue to face going forward.

The disparity between furniture store openings and closings was the highest from 2007 to 2012. The ratio of furniture store closings as a percent of total stores averaged 11% in the five years during and immediately following the recession. Despite a boom of store openings from 2011 to 2012, the ratio of furniture store openings averaged only 8.3% in the same five years. From 2012 to 2016, the net change in stores has stayed relatively flat – never showing a positive net change for furniture store openings.

The disparity between store openings and closings has reached even wider for home furnishings stores – closing an average of 11.6% of stores per year from 2007 to 2012 and only opening a yearly average of 6.5%. Since 2012, the number of store closings have exceeded openings with the net change a negative 1.4%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistics of U.S. Businesses, Business Information Tracking Series *March 2019 Report – Data collection ends in 2016