Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
Smith Leonard Shares Results and Insights
August 31,
2023 by HFBusiness Staff in Business Strategy, Industry 
Once again, the results of our recent survey of residential furniture manufacturers and distributors require explanation more than just a comparison. New orders in June 2023 were up 23% over June 2022, which at first glance, sounds like things were picking up.
But looking back to June 2022, that survey indicated that new orders were actually down some 39% from June 2021. We will give more comparison in the full report, but suffice it to say, the June results were not as rosy as the results might appear.
Year to date, new orders were down 8% compared to the same period in 2022. Some 71% of the participants were down year to date.
Shipments in June 2023 were down 28% from June 2022 when they were up 10% over June 2021. Again, the comparisons need more explanation.
For the month, shipments were down for 74% of the participants. Year to date, shipments were down 17% with just over 70% of the participants reporting lower shipments.
Backlogs were up slightly as orders in June were slightly higher than shipments in dollars but were down 58% from June 2022, compared to a decrease of 61% reported last month.
Receivable levels were down significantly, slightly lower than the decrease in shipments. Inventory levels dropped again in June and were down 26% compared to last year. The number of factory and warehouse employees fell again as well as payrolls.
Specifically for the furniture and home furnishings industry, sales at stores in July 2023 were down 6.3% from July 2022. Sales at these stores were down 3.8% year to date. But remember that sales at these stores were up 15.6% in July 2021 over July 2020 and about even in 2022 with 2021.
Click HERE to review their whole report.