HIGH POINT — On May 11, 1981, Furniture Today introduced its first national ranking of furniture stores. The retail landscape at the time bore little resemblance to what we know today.
Ashley HomeStores, today’s top dog, was still 16 years away from opening its first retail store and was a domestic manufacturer of occasional furniture. Williams-Sonoma was just a mid-size chain of gourmet stores, Ikea had yet to cross the Atlantic, and RH had a full name. Operating as Restoration Hardware, the then-two-year-old California retailer sold upscale hard-to-find fixtures and hardware and would not even be considered a furniture retailer let alone one of the top operators in the country.
Entire channels of distribution had yet to be invented, and others, now long gone, were enjoying their heyday. Staples and Office Depot, for example had yet to open their doors, and the personal computing revolution that would drive billions in home office sales would be touched off later that year with the introduction of IBM’s model 5150.
The Internet, then called CSNET, boasted 200 computers connected to a handful of institutional users around the country. Smartphones were still a decade away, and social media meant passing notes to friends in class.
Top 100 is born
Furniture Today itself was just five years old and had spent the prior two years building its research capabilities by ranking retailers attending key markets in San Francisco and Dallas. The first list did not even carry the name Top 100, which has since become an iconic part of the furniture industry lexicon.
The 1981 list was presented under the title: “Nation’s foremost furniture retailers in 4 categories,” and it listed retailers based on annual sales in four dollar ranges: furniture retailers with more than $100 million in sales; with $50 million to $99 million in sales, with $25 million to $49 million in sales, and with $1 million to $24 million in sales.
That first list contained the names of 70 retailers in all, only 10 of which are on the 2021 list in their original form. These include C.S.Wo & Sons, Grand Piano and Furniture (now Grand Home Furnishings), Haverty’s, Haynes, Kane (now Kane’s Furniture), Kimbrell’s, Kittle’s, Lack’s Stores (now Lack’s Valley Stores), Schewel Furniture (now Schewels Home) and W.S. Badcock (now Badcock Home Furniture & More).
Others, such as Nebraska Furniture Mart, R.C. Wiley and Star Furniture now appear on the list under the Berkshire Hathaway furniture division, while Value City now appears as American Signature. Other familiar names, Gabbert’s and Marlo, likewise today have new owners appearing under the HOM Furniture and Regency listings, respectively.
In 1983, the list would receive its current name — Top 100 — and over the ensuing 40 years it would evolve as would the industry it covered, incorporating new segments of business such as mattress specialty stores, lifestyle stores and department stores.
Along the way, the bar to getting on the list would rise, as the industry grew along with the sales volumes of its most powerful players. In 1981, Levitz captured the top spot with sales of $500.8 million which, adjusted for inflation would be about $1,468.94 million today; enough to capture the No. 11 spot on this year’s list.
Tribute to industry’s vitality
Over the past 40 years, a number of companies have taken turns atop the list. In 2001, Ethan Allen sat in the No. 1 position, only to be surpassed by Rooms To Go, which spent five consecutive years in the top spot before being displaced by current leader Ashley HomeStore.
Ashley HomeStore has had an unprecedented 15-year run atop the Top 100, capturing the top spot in 2007 as the first furniture retailer to pass $2 billion in annual sales and never relinquishing the lead.
On the pages that follow, we will honor some of those who have shown the staying power to adapt to changing times, as well as recognize the newcomers who keep the Top 100 list a vibrant living document and testament to the furniture industry’s vitality.
For those who want to take a walk through history, we’ve put together a stroll through the decades, featuring the original ranking as well as Top 100 lists from 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021. The 2021 ranking published last week and features a number of new players.
We hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane, the chance to celebrate those who have stood the test of time and the chance to remember those that, while no longer here, contributed to the dynamic history of the furniture industry.
The 40th anniversary event was sponsored by:
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May 28, 2021 at 05:47PM
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Charting 40 years of furniture retailing - Furniture Today
"furniture" - Google News
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