Industry News & Analysis
The latest industry news and analysis—across all categories—listed in chronological order, with the most recent articles first.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
Cintique moved to Celebrity Motion Furniture as part of restructuring of JDP group operations.
The chairman and owner of the JDP Furniture Group says 2017–18 was a painful year in a very tough market but insists he is looking ahead with confidence and has vowed to continue investing in its upholstery brands.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Hilco has reintroduced furniture to Homebase.
Underlying half-year losses narrowed at home improvement retailer Homebase as the Hilco-backed chain cut costs and reintroduced higher-margin furniture products.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Rent-to-own furniture and electricals chain BrightHouse has named Anth Mooney as successor to Hamish Paton, who resigned as chief executive earlier this year.
- Details
- FLOORCOVERINGS |
Topps Tiles, the market leader in the UK wall and floorcoverings retail sector, has agreed to buy commercial tile supplier Strata Tiles from its private shareholders.
- Details
- BEDS & MATTRESSES |
A one-time manager of the now defunct Dewsbury mattress maker Hick Lane Bedding has been disqualified as a director for six years following an investigation by The Insolvency Service.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
Buoyant Upholstery faced headwinds last year.
Lancashire sofa maker Buoyant Upholstery has found cost savings, a major new customer and introduced a more inspirational product range as it bids to bounce back from trading headwinds in 2017–18.
- Details
- OPINION & ANALYSIS |
James Sturrock, the boss of mattress vendor Eve Sleep since last September, said yesterday's appointment of Tim Parfitt as CFO completes the new management line-up.
- Details
- BEDS & MATTRESSES |
Suppliers, customers and the taxman face a combined seven-figure shortfall from the insolvency of southeast mattress and bedroom furniture retail chain Beaumont Beds.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Sales of home merchandise climbed at John Lewis & Partners for the first time in six weeks with big-ticket furniture and floorcoverings leading the way.
- Details
- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE |
A long hot summer in the UK wasn't enough for Gloster Furniture, the high-end outdoor furniture brand, to grow sales in the British market last year.
- Details
- BEDS & MATTRESSES |
Appointment completes management team says CEO James Sturrock.
Eve Sleep, the mattress and ancillary products retailer, has hired the CFO of rival furniture company Loaf as the replacement for its outgoing finance chief Abid Ismail in a coup for the business.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
More Sofa.com concessions in House of Fraser are planned.
Upholstery vertical Sofa.com will open another three concessions in addition to the already-reported six planned new units inside House of Fraser (HoF) department stores.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
Kuka, the Far East upholstery giant, will waste no time rolling out Natuzzi stores in the Greater China region following the signing of its joint venture agreement with the Italian company last year.
- Details
- EVENTS |
Attendance spiked at last week's globally-significant Salone del Mobile exhibition in Milan in a sign of healthy spend intention among trade buyers in world furniture markets.
- Details
- REGIONAL |
Privately-owned department store retailer Beales could exit the North East of England after announcing its remaining store there will close later this year.
- Details
- BEDS & MATTRESSES |
Imports of foam and sprung mattresses combined are on the rise.
Foam and sprung mattress imports rose double-digit again in February, meaning British buyers have now bought more in from outside the UK in every month since May last year.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
Just4Sofas is adding to the introduction of its first standalone store, in Fareham, last autumn.
Just4Sofas, a two-store and online retailer majoring in electric recliners and a stockist of brands such as La-Z-Boy, is opening a third retail showroom.
- Details
- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE |
Cabinet imports advanced in February.
Imports of living, dining and bedroom cabinet climbed in February as UK wholesalers and retailers shipped in more from China.
- Details
- DATA & RESEARCH |
Retail footfall grew in March according to new figures from the British Retail Consortium, boosted by weather events that negatively impacted shopper turnout last year.
- Details
- CASE GOODS |
Higher sales and overhead management weren't enough to prevent Yorkshire kitchen, bedroom and bathroom cabinet maker Ellis Furniture slipping to a loss last year.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
Upholstery imports from China fell nearly double-digit last year, but are on the rise again in the early months of 2019.
Last year will go down as a bad one for Sino-UK upholstery trade, with stocks of China-made products arriving in Britain down nearly double-digit year-on-year. That trend looks set to be reversed in 2019.
- Details
- INTERNATIONAL |
Alexandre Nodale, the longtime Conforama CEO who additionally became deputy CEO of parent Steinhoff International Holdings at the back end of 2017, is stepping down from both posts.
- Details
- BEDS & MATTRESSES |
Mike Marshall (left) with Millbrook Beds sales director Mark Hughes.
South Coast bed maker Millbrook has named well-known sales agent Mike Marshall as manager for Scotland as it looks to expand its customer base across the UK.
- Details
- FLOORCOVERINGS |
British retailers and wholesalers bought more carpets from Belgium — the largest foreign source of the product — in February, ending a negative stretch going back to July last year.
- Details
- REGIONAL |
The owner and operator of a discount warehouse in the North West selling all types of furniture has been sent to jail after pleading guilty to VAT fraud.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
La-Z-Boy UK recorded seven-figure profits in 2017–18.
Upholstery source La-Z-Boy cleared seven percent net at its fledgling wholly-owned UK subsidiary as it posted high sales in the first figures since it bought back the rights to the brand.
- Details
- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE |
KPMG reveals what was and wasn't included in March sale of Lanarkshire soft furnishings supplier.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
Sales fell in mid single digits for Natuzzi through 2018.
Italian upholstery giant Natuzzi swung back into the black last year after booking a €75.4 million gain on the summer 2018 joint venture with Chinese furniture giant Kuka.
- Details
- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE |
Modern furniture maker MDF Italia has acquired the brand and other assets of compatriot Acerbis in a move that further consolidates the high-end of the Italian furniture design market.
- Details
- BEDS & MATTRESSES |
Mattress Firm closed 660 stores as part of a Chaper 11 restructuring.
Steve Stagner is stepping down for a second time as chief executive at Mattress Firm, America's largest beds retailer. He had returned last year to oversee the restructure necessitated as part of the fallout from accounting problems at parent company Steinhoff.
- Details
- BEDS & MATTRESSES |
Harrison Spinks has since launched TV advertising for the first time.
Sales and profits advanced for Harrison Spinks Beds ahead of it making its TV advertising debut this Christmas, but it was the Leeds group's components division that delivered the biggest uplift in performance last year.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Store numbers were unchanged at 169 but will increase by another two in the final quarter of Dunelm's financial year.
Home goods retailer Dunelm Group made further gains in the first three months of 2019 as it continued to transition sales from its now-shut Worldstores business and attract new custom.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has told Harveys, the Steinhoff-owned furniture chain, to rethink advertising that made the claim of guaranteed Christmas delivery in a ruling that will likely be instructive to other retailers.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
John Lewis & Partners posted lower sales last week as the employee-owned retailer continued to annualise the earlier fall of the Easter holidays in 2018.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Debenhams has been sold in a prepack administration deal to its lenders.
Debenhams has been sold to a lender-controlled newco via a prepack deal that leaves all previous equity holders' interests in the retailer wiped out, including Mike Ashley's Sports Direct International business.
- Details
- REGIONAL |
Arighi Bianchi's Silk Road store in Macclesfield.
Privately-owned furniture retailer Arighi Bianchi booked lower profits in 2017–18, impacted by the board's decision to take a one-off hit in order to address its historic final salary pension scheme.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Furniture and flooring retailers struggled to match year-earlier trade in March according to stores group the British Retail Consortium, with overall retail sales also down on last year.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Elys of Wimbledon is the largest store in the Morleys group.
Morleys, the southeast retail group behind the Elys and Camp Hopson department stores and several others, has named Nigel Blow as its new chief executive.
- Details
- BEDS & MATTRESSES |
Beter Bed, the pan-European mattress and beds retail specialist, claims it has become the first to launch a completely circular box spring, saying its new Element programme is fully-recyclable.
- Details
- REGIONAL |
Independent furniture retailer R. Agar & Son, better known as Agars of Whitby, is clearing stock ahead of its planned permanent closure this week.
- Details
- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE |
The Melksham-based UK arm of Herman Miller, the global workplace furniture maker, says it will get a three-fold benefit after it acquired two Engel injection moulding machines.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Department store chain Debenhams is expected to complete a prepack deal today that will give lenders control of the business.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
Underlying revenue climbed at Furnico, the Lancashire sofa manufacturer, in its first full year since it sold the UK and Ireland licensing rights to the La-Z-Boy brand.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Hammonds manufactures its own furniture and sells through its showrooms nationwide, some of which are sited inside high-class independent partner stores.
Trading was tougher for fitted furniture maker and retailer Hammonds in the year leading up to its March 2019 management buyout, new accounts reveal.
- Details
- FLOORCOVERINGS |
Neil Rylance, CEO of flooring group Airea, has sold 2.5 million shares at 72 pence per share to the company's recently-created Employee Benefit Trust (EBT), the company has announced.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Its new TV campaign debuted last week.
General merchandise retailer Argos has introduced its new spring/summer furniture and home collection with a big supporting advertising push.
- Details
- CASE GOODS |
West Yorkshire furniture manufacturer Strachan — maker of high-end fitted bedrooms, home offices and dressing rooms — matched year-earlier trade in 2017–18 but profits fell on higher costs.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
The South Coast factory that was home to the liquidated business.
The liquidator of one of the former furniture companies run by Wesley Barrell owner Ayiaz Ahmed says two separate tracing companies have been paid to try and find a residential address for him, without success.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
Sofas & Stuff, the upholstery retailer founded by Sofa Workshop creator Andrew Cussins, is opening a new store in the Midlands, its 13th nationwide.
- Details
- REGIONAL |
Privately-owned retailer Duncans of Banchory moved to larger 12,000sqft premises earlier this spring.
- Details
- UPHOLSTERY |
Matt O'Flynn, former chairman at the association of British Furniture Manufacturers (BFM) and the Long Eaton Guild of Furniture of Manufacturers, has died. He was 44 years old.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Minerva Furniture Group has hired Simon Davies as group merchandise manager with the buying group saying his appointment bolsters its existing team.
- Details
- BEDS & MATTRESSES |
Consumers are buying beds more often, says the NBF.
Efforts to encourage shoppers to replace their mattress more often are working according to new research by the National Bed Federation (NBF).
- Details
- ECOMMERCE |
The first UK Way Day is April 10.
Internet retail giant Wayfair will next week slash prices across 250,000 furniture and décor products as it debuts its Way Day promotional event among UK shoppers.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
Fitted furniture vertical Starplan Furniture will open its fifth store in England and its eleventh in all by adding a new unit in Staffordshire later this month.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
JB Global, the company behind Britain's biggest hardwood furniture retailer Oak Furniture Land, is to have its Swindon distribution centre expanded as part of a transaction that also sees the break clause removed.
- Details
- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE |
Freehold property was held by the holding company, which isn't insolvent.
Suppliers to the no-longer-trading Kingstown group of furniture companies will not recoup funds from the sale of the company's factory with owners having ceded control in the period leading up to the manufacturer entering administration.
- Details
- SUPPLY & WHOLESALE |
Privately-owned rug distributor Flair Rugs will achieve ten straight years of growth if it builds sales again this year after it posted another rise in output in the 12 months to June 30, 2018.
- Details
- RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION |
The retailer saw home sales decline again, though impacted by seasonal timing.
Home sales were down nearly a fifth at John Lewis & Partners last week as the department chain annualised a week containing Good Friday and Easter Saturday last year.
- Details
- FLOORCOVERINGS |
Balta Group, the Belgian carpet manufacturing giant and a major supplier to the British market, has appointed interim boss Cyrille Ragoucy as chief executive on a permanent basis.
