Furniture retailers face existential threat

The Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s so-called “reciprocal tariffs” on Friday. Regardless of the ruling, there’s little comfort to be found for the furniture industry.

Furniture importers are facing steep import duties after the industry was hit with higher tariffs on items such as couches, kitchen cabinets and vanities last fall under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act.

While Trump’s country-specific “liberation day” tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and announced in April were under review by the nation’s highest court, the duties specific to furniture importers, of around 25%, were not.

Compounding the issue is a constant thread of uncertainty plaguing the industry, said Peter Theran, CEO of the Home Furnishings Association, the trade group representing furniture retailers.

The 25% duty on certain furniture imports was supposed to rise to 50% in January, but at the end of December, that plan was pushed back to 2027. Its also become common over the past year for Trump to threaten new tariffs on various imports that never end up getting enacted.

“This is a very, very difficult time to manage your business,” said Theran. “The No. 1 driver of the difficulty of managing your business is unpredictability and an inability to make alternative plans and invest in those plans, because you don’t know what tomorrow will be.”

Tariffs and the uncertainty they’ve brought are the latest blow to the furniture industry, which has been struggling for the past four years and was under pressure well before Trump’s trade war.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, when people were stuck at home and flush with cash, many Americans took the opportunity to refresh their spaces and buy new furniture and decor. Then, low interest rates brought a surge in demand for new homes, which served as a catalyst for furniture buying. 

The result was outsized growth across the home goods industry and boom times for furniture.

But as inflation and interest rates began to creep up in 2022, the sector started to sputter, and it later declined for the first time in at least seven years, according to data from Euromonitor. 

By the time tariffs came around, home sales had slowed and some furniture companies were already struggling to keep operations afloat and couldn’t manage the sudden increase in fixed costs. 

American Signature Furniture, the parent company behind Value City Furniture, declared bankruptcy late last year after nearly 80 years in business. It began liquidation sales at its 89 remaining stores last month. 

In a court filing, the company said the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, subsequent shifts in consumer spending and rising costs led to a 27% decline in sales between 2023 and 2025. Net operating losses ballooned from $18 million to $70 million during the same time period, it said. 

By the end of 2024, the company was facing “significant liquidity constraints,” which were then “further exacerbated and accelerated by the introduction of new tariff policies,” the company said in the filing. 

Over the last year, at least 10 other furniture businesses have declared bankruptcy, with some liquidating and ceasing operations altogether, according to a CNBC review of federal bankruptcy filings. 

Most of the companies are smaller businesses, which have been hit harder by tariffs because they have fewer resources than their larger competitors.

“The smaller players are definitely the ones that will be the hardest hit because they don’t necessarily have deep pockets, they don’t have the economies of scale, they don’t have the huge sourcing teams that can suddenly look to pivot the destination or the origin of the products,” said Neil Saunders, retail analyst and managing director at GlobalData. “So they are under a lot of pressure, and we probably will see more failures in that independent space.” 

Joseph Cozza, whose small furniture business East Coast Innovators supplies retailers such as Macy’s and Raymour & Flanigan, told CNBC he was forced to raise prices between 15% and 18% to offset higher tariff costs, leading to a slide in demand over the holidays. 

For now, Cozza said he can keep his business running but is hoping for an interest rate cut, a jolt to the housing market and larger-than-expected tax returns to spur sales. 

“I’m praying for that,” he said. 

If not, he might have to move his business from Philadelphia to North Carolina, where operating costs are lower, he said. 

“I have a nice company with nice employees, and I pay them all a really good wage, and I’m being penalized,” said Cozza. “I’m being penalized for what I do, and I just don’t think that’s fair.”

The advent of tariffs has created a market grab opportunity for larger businesses, which are better equipped than smaller businesses to weather policy changes and keep prices lower.

Over the last year, some large and publicly traded furniture companies have actually been growing profits and sales despite higher costs from tariffs. 

During Ikea’s fiscal 2025, it was able to keep prices relatively steady and revenue about flat compared with 2024, it said in a news release. It did report higher operating expenses but attributed the increase to an acquisition it made in the Baltics, not tariffs. 

RH, Williams-Sonoma and Wayfair have all grown sales and margins even as they faced higher import costs. 

In the nine months ended Nov. 1, RH saw sales grow almost 10% as margins expanded. At Williams-Sonoma, sales grew about 4% in the 39 weeks ended Nov. 2 while operating margins grew slightly. Wayfair, which reported fourth-quarter results on Thursday, saw revenue grow 5.1% in fiscal 2025 as gross margin stayed steady and operating expenses fell. 

Wall Street has yet to see the full impact of furniture-specific tariffs on these companies because most of them last reported results right around the time the tariffs were enacted.

But they already faced a wide array of duties throughout 2025. Most U.S. furniture imports come from China and from Vietnam and other parts of southeast Asia, which have seen a range of higher tariffs before furniture-specific levies were introduced. At one point, imports from China were tariffed as high as 145%, while Vietnam faced tariffs of around 20%.

Those country-specific duties were the ones struck down by the Supreme Court. At the heart of the case was whether Trump had the legal authority to impose what he called reciprocal tariffs, which critics said infringed on the power of Congress to tax.

A reversal of those tariff rates means even more uncertainty. Chief among the questions now is how the tariffs will be refunded and whether the administration will come up with new ways to implement trade initiatives.

“A CEO of one of the largest furniture retailers in the country said to me, ‘Even if tariff strategy ended up with the worst possible outcome for my business, I would then create a plan, invest in that plan, execute under that plan and create the best outcome that’s available,'” said Theran of the Home Furnishings Association.

“No one can do that,” he said. “No one can invest in a plan now, because the tariff strategy has not stabilized. It keeps changing.”