Memorial Day weekend always feels big when you’re on the floor. The showroom is busier. The stakes are higher. And every missed customer feels a little more expensive than usual.
What makes weekends like this interesting isn’t just the traffic — it’s what stores do with it. Some teams turn the momentum into stronger tickets and higher conversion. Others watch opportunity walk back out the door.
This week, we’re looking back at how Memorial Day 2025 actually played out across the industry — where traffic showed up, where conversion held, and what the numbers revealed once the weekend was over.
Today's Rundown
Here's a quick glimpse of what is in this week's newsletter.
- Memorial Day Discounts Starting Early: Promotions are already ramping up ahead of the holiday weekend as stores compete harder for summer traffic and bigger tickets.
- Furniture Spending Still Under Pressure: Consumers are still being selective with big-ticket purchases like furniture, according to new sales data released this week.
- A Promotional Summer Ahead: Aggressive discounting is expected to continue through the summer as businesses fight harder for traffic, conversion, and consumer attention.
Notable News
What Memorial Day 2025 Looked Like for Furniture Stores
Furniture retailers entered Memorial Day weekend 2025 with softer traffic compared to the prior year, especially on the critical Saturday and Sunday stretch where showroom momentum normally peaks. Saturday traffic alone fell roughly 11%, creating a meaningful drag on overall opportunity volume.
What kept the category afloat was ticket strength. Average order value climbed just over 2% across the weekend, with gains remaining consistent each day. That lift was enough to offset much of the traffic decline, allowing furniture revenue to finish essentially flat year over year despite fewer buying groups walking through the door.
The bigger signal was conversion. Conversion slipped slightly during the weekend, particularly on Sunday — the second-highest traffic day. In high-ticket retail, small conversion changes during peak traffic periods create outsized revenue impact. Memorial Day 2025 reinforced a familiar theme for furniture operators: when traffic tightens, execution matters more than ever.
Trakwell Q1 2026 Home furnishing Benchmark Report
The numbers are in — and Q1 2026 told two very different stories depending on which department you’re looking at.
On the furniture side, foot traffic continued its slide, with daily opportunities down 16% from this time last year. But here’s what’s interesting: sales teams didn’t blink. Conversion held at 39.5% — actually up 2% year-over-year — and average ticket stayed firm at $2,271. Fewer ups, same close rate. The floor is doing its job.
Mattress told a different story altogether. Daily opportunities were up 31% versus Q1 2025, daily revenue climbed 12%, and average ticket jumped nearly 11% from last quarter alone. The prospecting activity driving those numbers is hard to ignore — new prospects more than doubled year-over-year, and over half of all customer interactions were prospecting-focused.
Two industries, two different challenges. One working to squeeze more out of less traffic, the other managing a surge in opportunity while keeping conversion sharp.
We broke it all down — traffic, revenue, average ticket, conversion rate, be-backs, and more — in the full Q1 2026 Benchmark Report.
Notable News
How Mattress Stores Won Memorial Day 2025
The mattress industry significantly outperformed furniture over Memorial Day weekend 2025, driven by a powerful combination of higher traffic and larger average tickets. Overall foot traffic rose more than 22% year over year, while average ticket increased over 11% across every day of the holiday weekend.
What stands out is how resilient revenue remained even on softer traffic days. Saturday and Sunday traffic both declined slightly, yet revenue still climbed nearly 9% thanks to stronger ticket performance. Friday and Monday were especially strong, benefiting from both increased shopper volume and larger purchases.
Conversion rates also improved modestly across the board, with Saturday once again emerging as the category’s strongest closing day. The result was an 8.1% revenue lift for the overall Memorial Day period — a strong reminder that mattress retail continues to reward operators who maximize both traffic quality and in-store execution during compressed promotional weekends.
Retail Snippets
Memorial Day Discounts Starting Early: Promotions are already ramping up ahead of the holiday weekend as stores compete hard for summer traffic and bigger tickets.
Furniture Spending Still Under Pressure: Consumers are still being selective with big-ticket purchases like furniture, according to new sales data released this week.
A Promotional Summer Ahead: Analysts expect aggressive discounting to continue through summer as businesses fight harder for traffic and consumer attention.
Random Irrelevance
Clean Energy Milestone: China’s newest solar installation generated enough power this week to supply more than 1 million homes, according to Reuters.
AI Finds Hidden Planets: Researchers uncovered more than 100 previously hidden exoplanets in old NASA telescope data using artificial intelligence, according to Space.com.
Ocean Cleanup Progress: The Ocean Cleanup project announced it has now removed more than 20 million kilograms of trash from oceans and rivers worldwide, according to The Ocean Cleanup.
