Fresh insights are here! Wondering how your store stacked up against the industry last quarter? Our Q3 Home Furnishing Benchmark Report is now live!
This week, we’re not only diving into last quarter’s performance for furniture and mattress retailers—we’re also gearing up for the holiday season. See what the latest trends suggest for the rest of the year!
Today's Rundown
- Cultural Shift: Why 9 out of 10 European shoppers prefer in-store shopping, and other key trends
- Trakwell Feature of the week: Learn how to save time with mass exclusions.
- OUT NOW: Sign up to receive the Q3 2024 Home Furnishing Benchmark Report.
Market Watch
Furniture Industry
Mattress Industry
Trakwell Feature of the Week
This is where each week we highlight a feature within Trakwell. This week’s feature is: Sale Performance – No Sale Reason
Why do customers leave your store without buying?
Finding points of friction within the customer experience and improving upon them is one of the simplest ways to increase your sales conversion.
The No Sale Reason tab shows a pie chart breaking down all of the reasons for no-sales. The tab shows the top reason for no-sales for the company as a whole and each store by itself.
Out Now: Q3 Home Furnishing Benchmark Report
In Q3 2024, the furniture and mattress industry experienced mixed performance trends.
Foot traffic in the furniture industry decreased by 5% compared to Q3 2023, with August 2024 having the highest foot traffic of the quarter, with an average of 16 daily customers per store. Despite the year-over-year decline, the industry saw a slight 2.78% increase in foot traffic compared to Q2 2024. Sales activity was primarily concentrated on Saturdays, accounting for 24% of total sales, with Tuesday being the weakest sales day.
In terms of financial performance, daily revenue per store for the mattress industry decreased to $2,686 from 2,888, while the average ticket size remained steady at $1,916. The industry maintained a strong conversion rate of 61%, reflecting a solid ability to convert foot traffic into sales.
While overall traffic declined, there was consistent customer engagement, with prospects gathered and time spent with customers remaining stable throughout the quarter.
Holiday Sales Predictions
The US National Retail Federation (NRF) anticipates a promising winter holiday season in 2024, projecting a sales increase of 2.5% to 3.5% compared to the previous year.
This could lead to total holiday spending reaching between $979.5 billion and $989 billion during November and December, a rise from $955.6 billion in 2023. NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay emphasized the health of the economy and the strong job market as key factors driving consumer confidence and spending capacity as families prepare for this important season.
A significant driver of this growth is expected to be online shopping, with non-store sales projected to climb by 8% to 9%, reaching between $295.1 billion and $297.9 billion. However, retailers should also be aware that the 2024 shopping period will be shorter, lasting just 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Additionally, the NRF predicts that external factors such as hurricanes and the upcoming US presidential election may influence sales trends. In preparation for the holiday rush, retailers are expected to hire between 400,000 and 500,000 seasonal workers, a slight decrease from last year’s 509,000, with major chains like Target planning to hire 100,000 seasonal staff.
Retail Snippets
Cultural Shift: Why 9 out of 10 European shoppers prefer in-store shopping, and other key trends
More to Come: Walgreens plans to shut down 1,200 US stores as stock trading near 30-year lows.
Spooky Trends: Consumer trends to watch this Halloween shopping season.
Random Irrelevance
Never before seen: 5 astonishing galaxy images captured by James Webb space Telescope Miri instrument.
23andMe Data Breach: Settlement Could Pay $10,000 to Data Breach Victims.
First Look: Neuralink brain implant wins an FDA nod to tackle blindness.
