E-commerce Continues Double-Digit Furniture Industry Growth
March 6,
2020 by Laurie Northington in General 
E-commerce furniture and home furnishings websites continue to chip away at brick and mortar retailers, reporting a double-digit growth of 22% in 2018 compared to single-digit growth by other furniture and home furnishings retail channels.
The explosive e-commerce growth comes in spite of a report indicating only 14% of consumers actually prefer to purchase furniture online (Euclid Analytics). This leaves brick and mortar retailers scratching their heads how to give consumers the shopping experience they apparently prefer.
This is the second factoid in a series of five factoids detailing how despite predictions that the rate of e-commerce growth in the furniture industry would slow, e-commerce sales have continued at over 20% annually in recent years.
The retail furniture industry reached $112.8 billion last year, a growth of 7.0% over 2018. While total furniture and bedding retail sales have maintained robust growth through 2018, 2019 year-to-date has slowed – only increasing 3.6% from 2018 Q3 YTD to 2019 Q2 YTD.
Sales of combined furniture and home furnishings through e-commerce retailers have increased from $7.9 billion in 2006 to an estimated $59.7 billion in 2018 – an average per year growth since 2009 of 23%.
Source: Impact Consulting Services Inc.’s FurnitureCore.com proprietary Industry Model; Comprehensive revisions by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis to Personal Consumption Expenditures (Consumer Spending) have been incorporated in the Industry Model.
U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of Retail E-commerce sales; data available through 2017
*E-commerce retailers are those retailers without storefronts with or companies with dedicated online business models.