Furniture Industry Rebounding But Changing

The High Point Furniture Market returns this month.  This year should see continued growth in the industry.

Anderson, Bauman, Tortellot and Vos, a Greensboro financial advisory firm, issued a report Monday that found furniture orders through the middle of this year were up 5 percent compared to 2014 numbers.

Peter Tortellot with ABTV says while the industry is growing again, it's also changing. He says technology has shrunk the size of TVs and computers, and it's had an impact on the furniture business. Bulky furniture items like entertainment centers are on the way out, and so are the big spaces that used to be needed to fit them. 

“That's allowed developers to reduce the size of their homes, which in turn has caused the furniture industry to reduce the size of their furniture or they're not going to sell," he says. "And that's having an increasing impact on the buying public.”

Tortellot says another trend is that new homes are increasingly being built without the traditional dining room. That has also caused furniture manufacturers to rethink what they make.

The High Point Furniture Market returns October 17.