THE STATE OF THE FURNITURE BUSINESS IN 2016

Furniture makers, companies, designers, importers and furniture retailers are no longer strangers when it comes to issues and problems that hounded the furniture industry.  Although some sectors in this industry may have enjoyed moderate growth last year, a lot faced issues and challenges which affected their business.

Just like any other businesses, the furniture industry has its own share of problems and challenges which greatly affects them, and one of which is projecting their inventory. Furniture closeouts from other countries have flooded our country resulting to surplus furniture piling up in warehouses. While our costs kept on increasing, furniture manufacturers from other countries like China, India and Bangladesh managed to keep their costs at bay, allowing them to produce as many furniture as they can. As a result, a lot of companies have a hard time projecting their inventory as more people opt to buy cheaper furniture. Although some furniture manufacturers and makers managed to stay afloat by producing quality products, retailers extending discounts to their customers, still a lot of furniture remained unsold and are collecting dust in warehouses. 

Surplus furniture that you can see in retail stores

The cost of oil has gone down dramatically over the past years, this allowed other countries especially from furniture producing nations to ship or transport more of these furniture products to their customers, not to mention faster of mode of transport which allows them to flood the market with surplus furniture that you can see in retail stores. This in effect, results in more furniture overstock in warehouses sitting and collecting dust.

What can they do to correct this immediate painful problem? Manufacturers, importers and retailers having large quantity of furniture surplus, closeout furniture or furniture overstock, often contact closeout buyers, furniture liquidators or furniture discounters. They know that stale dated merchandise is like money sitting in a checking account, not earning them any interest. So contacting a home décor liquidator or a national furniture liquidator to sell their office furniture clearance or hotel furniture liquidator makes good business sense.

Another problem which furniture manufacturers and designers have to contend with is design piracy. Just like producers of smart phones and gadgets, these companies acknowledged that totally eliminating copying and piracy is really hard and safeguarding everything is almost impossible. Some of these companies have been victim of other manufacturers who are producing an almost identical design at a lower cost, selling it as surplus furniture. This practice results to closeout furniture piling up in their warehouses. Some companies have to rent or lease additional warehouses to house their products and prevent further losses due to damages. To combat this issue, more companies are innovating more often in order to be a step ahead of the competition.

They are often shocked to discover that this wholesale merchandise is just sitting in their warehouse taking up valuable space that could be put to better use. They realize from painful experience that they must act promptly and liquidate their overstock clearance inventory.

There is also a rising call for environmental concern. A good hard wood as furniture maybe a thing of the past as more and more environmentalist group calls for total log ban in their country. Using composite materials may be able to solve this issue but the cost could also be high and staggering, which can result to steeper price, and with our economy still recuperating, furniture that are branded as premium may be left unsold in retail outlets and eventually have more inventories stored in the warehouse.

There are actually lots of issues and problems facing furniture manufacturers, designers, importers and retailers today. Coming up with innovative branding strategies will definitely help them against other industry players especially those coming from inexpensive labor producing countries.  

Vendors will try and contact various furniture and mattress liquidators, furniture discounters and assorted merchandise liquidators to help rid themselves of their wholesale merchandise. One of the largest wholesale liquidators is AAA Closeout Liquidators, a trusted and well known closeout buyer, in business since 1979. They specialize in quickly purchasing wholesale merchandise, overstock clearance and bulk inventory for cash. 

They are among the best reputable furniture liquidators and have the proven ability to purchase your entire furniture close outs, you can see a free informative video about their cash buying services by CLICKING HERE.

THE STATE OF THE SPORTING GOODS INDUSTRY TODAY

People today are focused on keeping themselves fit and healthy, while the rest are keen on making it to the big leagues depending on the sports they are into. Gone are the days when children play games or are into sports just to enjoy or just to keep them physically fit. Nowadays, some parents are urging their children to play a certain sport not only to distract them from being inactive, no thanks to smart phones, virtual games and computers, but also prodding them to make it big someday. This scenario gave an incentive to many sporting goods manufacturers, importers and retailers to cash in on the huge demand for sport equipment, sports gadgets used by players during training and games.

However, an analyst cited that the boom on sporting goods suffered a huge setback lately. According to reports, a major sporting goods retailer suffered a major slump due to over saturation. Excess store growth with growth accelerating over the last couple of years and having low demands for equipment especially high end brands resulted in overstock clearance and surplus wholesale merchandise in retail outlets. This resulted to several branches of these major retailers to close shop, lest they go bankrupt. Despite this move, these sporting goods outlets still have excess overstock clearance on hand and at their warehouse collecting dust. Analysts say these sports retail outlet are simply over stored and this problem affects not only them but also can hurt the manufacturers of the products they are carrying at their stores.

Overstock sporting goods

Another problem that is hounding the sporting goods business today especially sporting goods retailers is e-commerce. Traditional retailers have to store inventories anticipating the demand, but when this does not happen, the result is overstock sporting goods lying around. Adding more problems to these outlets is the new channel wherein people shop today. A simple click on one’s Smartphone allows them to have access to their favorite brands, sports equipment, gadgets and the likes. Unlike traditional retailers, this digital platform has less operational expense (OPEX) and enjoys lesser inventory level.

Manufacturers, importers and retailers having large quantity of fly fishing closeouts, overstock sporting goods or closeout hunting gear, often contact closeout buyers, sports liquidators or wholesale liquidators. They know that stale dated merchandise is like money sitting in a checking account, not earning them interest. Also this wholesale merchandise is just sitting in their warehouse taking up valuable space that could be put to better use. They realize from experience that they must act promptly and liquidate their overstock clearance inventory.

Further hurting this industry is the move by major players and manufacturers. They are now geared towards improving their direct sales to consumers, resulting to sudden downturn for sporting equipment in an already soft demand season. This competitive landscape has indeed made an opportunity for others but hurt some.

Traditional retailers of sporting goods, clothes, fitness gear and other sports equipment are struggling as more children in the country and adults play sports but opted to buy fashioned-focused athletic apparels.

Hurting the industry further is the influx of cheaper imported brands. Usually these brands came from Asian counties like China, India and Bangladesh where labor is relatively cheaper, and when it hit stores, more expensive brands are left hanging. Lastly, counterfeits are slowly making into the market, killing legit brands. So good are the counterfeits nowadays that it is really hard to detect, which again results to genuine overstock sporting goods sitting at the warehouses.

Closeout store

Vendors will try and contact various national closeout buyers and merchandise liquidators to rid themselves of their wholesale merchandise. One of the largest wholesale liquidators is AAA Closeout Liquidators, a trusted and well known closeout buyer, in business since 1979. They specialize in quickly purchasing wholesale merchandise, overstock clearance and bulk inventory for cash.

Chances of selling it may go down

A lot toy companies, manufacturers and also retail outlets often face several problems with regards to their inventories. Sometimes, no matter how hard they plan ahead of time, their inventories may either end up short, resulting in an out of stock situation (OSS) or may have acquired or ordered too many of those stock keeping units or SKU, which ends up sitting in their warehouse. Aside from these two major problems, toymakers, importers and manufacturers will also be encountering other issues that may affect their inventory and their business in general.

Toys are usually seasonal and what may be IN today may not be popular tomorrow. Toys unlike those products like a basketball which are popular whole year round, has a shorter “shelf life.” Once the novelty or popularity of these toys wanes down, chances of selling it may go down as well. Remember Elsa of the popular animated movie Frozen? The Elsa doll during the movie’s popularity coupled with the enticing song was selling like hotcake and manufacturers grabbed the opportunity and produced a lot of this item. Importers and retailers, just like the manufacturers, ordered this doll and piled up inventories of Elsa. After almost a year, the movie is no longer as popular and so is the doll, the result a huge inventory of Elsa dolls sitting at their warehouse. 

Wholesale Buyers

Manufacturers, importers and retailers having large quantity of excess wholesale toys, assorted toy closeouts or education toys closeouts, often contact toy wholesale distributors or a wholesale toy liquidator. They know that dead inventory is like money sitting in a checking account earning them no interest. So know from experience that they must act quickly and liquidate their closeout toy inventory. 

Another problems related to this is the seasonality index. It is great if manufacturers were able to deliver the toys they created to retailers before the season i.e. Christmas where people are on a buying spree. If Importers however failed to ship the products on time, chances are those toys may end up in shipyards and the holiday sales may go to waste, and those toys that the retailers ordered may be shipped back to the manufacturers.

We are Closeout buyers

Vendors will also try and contact various national closeout buyers to rid themselves of their toys closeouts and toy overstock. One of the largest toy liquidators is AAA Closeout Liquidators, a trusted and well known closeout buyer, in business since 1979. They specialize in purchasing overstock toys, wholesale toys and games and surplus toys for cash. Another issue that they may face in handling the inventory of toys is projection. Most companies rely too much on their marketing strategies thinking their product in this case toys will be a big hit and will be sold out once it hits the shelves. Unfortunately, a lot of these products are being sold at a cost even at a loss just to acquire what they have spent. It is wonderful if they managed to sell everything, otherwise, these products will be left sitting inside their warehouse, and usually retailers ship it back to manufacturers again with the products waiting to be stored inside the warehouse.

Overstock toys for sale

Having defective overstock toys for sale can also be a headache not only to manufacturers or toymakers but also to the importers and retailers. Just imagine having those robots inside a bulky case. A kid opens it and boom, the robot’s body falls apart. Everybody with this product will surely swamp the retail outlets, not to buy but to return the defective product and with the advent of social media, this toy will never sell as expected by the manufacturer.

There are actually a lot of issues and problems that the manufacturers down to the retailers will face especially those with huge toy closeout inventories gathering dust inside their warehouse.