In April, auctioneers sold off a stockpile of ash night stands, walnut-legged couches and leather swivel chairs that had been collecting dust inside a shuttered store and warehouse in Acton, Mass.
The stranded goods were the remnants of Circle Furniture, a family business that had offered its wares to the Boston area since President Harry S. Truman was in the White House. Last year, Circle’s sales plummeted 20 percent, and in December the company abruptly closed all nine of its stores, went bankrupt and began liquidating its assets.
America’s furniture stores have been ravaged over the past three years as high mortgage rates and home prices have frozen the housing market. That has left fewer people looking to furnish a new space with thousands of dollars’ worth of dining chairs, vanity desks and sectionals, and the slump is wreaking havoc on the industry.
“There’s going to be a lot of competition that’s not going to make it through these times,” Gary Friedman, chief executive of the upscale furniture retailer RH, told investors on a conference call in April. “There’s been greater fallout in the furniture business over the last few years than in any time in history.”
Annual sales for furniture stores are down about 8 percent since 2022, according to the Commerce Department. This year has also gotten off to a slow start, with January sales at their lowest since the pandemic. Mortgage rates have climbed since the U.S.-led war with Iran began in February, leading to continued uncertainty about whether the housing market will rebound this year.
“As long as housing turnover is at near record-low levels, there’s just less of a market for furniture and home furnishings,” said Zak Stambor, a senior analyst of retail and e-commerce at eMarketer, a research firm. “It’s increasingly a sink-or-swim environment.”
Circle endured longer than many of its peers. Over the past two years, many American furniture chains have filed for bankruptcy, closed their stores and liquidated their assets.
Conn’s, the Texas-based owner of Conn’s HomePlus and Badcock Home Furniture & More, shut all 550 of its stores across 15 states in 2024. A few months later, American Freight, an Ohio chain that specialized in discount furniture and mattresses, closed all of its 328 locations. Its parent company, Franchise Group, said at the time that the business “struggled due to sustained inflation and macroeconomic challenges facing the large durable goods sector.”
Last year, smaller retailers such as Worthy’s Run Furniture, 5th Avenue Furniture, Walker Edison and Brenmark, the parent company of Landmark Furniture, all filed for bankruptcy.
At Home, based in Dallas, had more than 250 stores that sold furniture and home goods when it began bankruptcy proceedings to get rid of about $2 billion in debt last June. It emerged in October under new ownership and closed about 30 locations.
In November, the Ohio-based American Signature, which operated the discount chain Value City Furniture, went under, citing declining sales amid weak demand for furniture. It held going-out-of-business sales at its 89 locations, and many customers are still waiting for their orders to be fulfilled.
Circle didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Some of those businesses tried to find buyers or new funding to stay afloat, but were unable to avoid dissolving. Those that remain are looking for ways to save money to make it through tough times.
“It’s a matter of survival,” said Stacey Widlitz, president of SW Retail Advisors, a research firm. “It’s not just the housing market they have to wrestle with.”
Last year, new tariffs imposed by President Trump added to the pressure. The United States placed 25 percent tariffs on imported furniture and cabinets, with increases scheduled for next year that would raise levies to as much as 50 percent for some products.
But the downturn is affecting U.S.-made goods, too. Ashley Furniture, the largest furniture manufacturer in the United States, is shutting down a plant in Texas and cutting more than 250 jobs, including upholstery workers and machine operators, according to a regulatory filing.
There are few new furniture brands on the market, which has concerned some retail executives who need a healthy vendor base to fill their stores with compelling products, according to a person familiar with the sector. Those that do often offer “dupes” — designs meant to look like trendy styles but sold for much less than the brand-name versions.
The nation’s largest furniture retailers have found ways to cope in this environment, reworking their supply chains and repositioning themselves in the market. That has led to a bifurcation in the industry, where big chains battle for market share while smaller players fight to stay open.
RH has invested in its grand stores, which it calls galleries, opening emporiums in cities such as Manhasset, N.Y., and Oklahoma City. IKEA, based in Sweden, is closing its only store in Tennessee but says it still plans to open some new locations in the United States in 2026. Wayfair, once only online, is planning several large-format stores in the coming years, opening in markets like Atlanta and Denver.
At Ethan Allen, where sales fell nearly 5 percent in its most recent quarter, executives told investors on a call that they were hopeful that the worst was behind them and that customers were ready to return despite their economic worries.
“All were scared,” Farooq Kathwari, the chief executive of Ethan Allen, said of his customers in January. “People are coming back.”
Yet Americans are still contending with high costs of everyday essentials that limit them from buying a new armoire or dining table. The war in Iran has pushed oil prices up, and the average price of gasoline is now more than $4 per gallon. Inflation may rise above 4 percent this year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Even when shoppers decide to make the furniture purchases they have been putting off, smaller sellers will have trouble keeping up. Companies like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Home Depot and Lowe’s all operate major furniture businesses, and they provide a suite of modern services that are tough to compete with, like fast shipping times and robust e-commerce operations.
As Circle sold off its remaining inventory in Massachusetts, another chain prepared to wind down in Texas.
Weir’s Furniture, which opened in Dallas at the onset of the Cold War, decided to shutter its last four stores. Management said it could not continue to operate because of “difficult market conditions and operational challenges.”
The Weir family wrote a letter to its employees, shoppers and vendors, thanking them for keeping the company in business for nearly 80 years. Then came the everything-must-go sale.
“All sales are final,” the retailer told its customers.
Kim Bhasin is a business reporter covering the retail industry for The Times.
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