Shopping for furniture for a home is a time-consuming process that usually requires visits to multiple showrooms to find the ideal item that will occupy living space.
In some cases, consumers get lucky and see the perfect furniture piece they have been looking for in one of their first visits to stores. In a lot of cases, it will take days, weeks, or maybe months to find the right item.
The process gets more difficult when consumers’ local furniture stores go out of business, leaving them with fewer options to choose from.
Several iconic furniture chains that have operated for decades have revealed that they will be closing their businesses in the next few months due to financial distress.
78-year-old Outten Bros. of Salisbury, Md., revealed on Oct. 1 that it would begin its liquidation sale on Oct. 2 and go out of business, but the company did not state specific reasons why it was closing.
Another 78-year-old furniture chain, New Deal Furniture of El Paso, Texas, said it would also begin a final liquidation sale on Oct. 2, and it, too, offered no specific reason for closing down.
Residents of the Nashville area learned on Oct. 16 that 77-year-old furniture retail chain American Signature Furniture, one of the nation’s major home furnishings retailers, will close all four of its Nashville-area stores and exit Tennessee to realign its market presence and strengthen operations in its top-performing regions.
The retailer did not reveal the stores’ last day of operation.
Economic issues are not the reason one iconic furniture chain is closing down its business, however.
Nader’s LA Popular Furniture chain, which launched in Southern California in 1956, will shut down its remaining two stores after completing going-out-of-business sales that begin Nov. 6.
The Gardena, Calif.-based furniture chain, which at one time operated five Southern California locations, is not closing because of financial distress or bankruptcy, as the family that runs the chain has decided it is time to retire from the business.
“The stores have been operating at incredible efficiency, generating impressive sales from a relatively small footprint,” Tom Liddell, senior vice president of inventory liquidator Planned Furniture Promotions, told Furniture Today. “It’s a bittersweet moment: a celebration of a family legacy and an acknowledgment of the changing retail landscape.”
Nader’s, which has a reputation for affordable furniture and loyal customers, owns its Gardena store and distribution center and leases its Signal Hill/Long Beach, Calif., location. The company recently closed locations in Carson and San Pedro, Calif.
