Nearly everyone who’s been in the casual industry for the past five years has realized there are big changes happening. But how will these changes affect the industry?
It started with full-line retailers like Rooms To Go, Nebraska Furniture Mart and Bassett Furniture who leaned hard into the casual category—Nebraska has a booming outdoor division with every product category imaginable, and Rooms To Go has opened several outdoor-only stores and added outdoor to some of their indoor stores since launching in 2018.
Last October, Jerome’s announced that it was launching two outdoor stores, and Best Buy acquired outdoor furniture manufacturer Yardbird in November.
At the same time, the number of specialty retailers is shrinking. While there isn’t much, if any, definitive data available on just how many casual specialty retailers there are in the U.S., let’s look at the numbers we do have.
According to ICFA’s website, they have 135 retailer members—some of which are full-line retailers and 13 of which are Summer Classics Home locations. So that leaves us around 120.
Because we can’t assume that every casual retailer in the country is an ICFA member, let’s be liberal and triple the number. That leaves 360 casual retailers in the U.S.
Compare that with the nearly 28,000 furniture stores across the country, and that’s an incredibly small number (less than 2%) that’s likely shrinking due to full-line retailers coming into the category and other factors like stores closing or being sold.
On the manufacturer’s side—partly because of companies like Ashley, Klaussner, Century, and others who entered the category first—full-line manufacturers have now realized casual is a viable category that can increase sales tremendously.
In just the last year, Hooker purchased Sunset West and companies like Eichholtz, Steve Silver, Progressive Furniture, Bellini Modern Living, South Shore Furniture, and more have launched outdoor—with several others like Sunpan, Holly Hunt, and Arhaus adding to their lineups.
Full-line manufacturers have finally caught on to the category in a big way, and this trend is likely to continue.
There’s no telling how this will all play out, and honestly, it leaves more questions than answers.
- How will casual retailers continue to stay relevant and express the value of their product as mainstream and big box stores add outdoor?
- Will “specialty stores” launched by full-line retailers fare better than casual specialty stores now?
- How will full-line manufacturers compete in the outdoor space?
- Will there be more acquisitions of casual manufacturers as companies realize how difficult it is to get into the outdoor category on their own?
Talking to a few outdoor manufacturers, they’re looking forward to the awareness full-line manufacturers will help bring to the category. Casual retailers are confident that they can offer better, more knowledgeable service than full-line stores. But only time will tell.
What do you think? Email me at alex@homenewsnow.com and let’s start a conversation.
