2016 Furniture Sales

Today I finished up all my business taxes (saves money that way). I like to do them early and get them out of the way so I can focus on other things.

Adding up all the sales this year, it was a record year - thank you to all my customers for your support. Just for fun I ran some numbers on my sales and Hancock and Moore was 56% of my total sales, whereas Bradington Young was just 5%. You can see which is my favorite supplier :). Not too many years ago we sold predominantly wood furniture - and hard wood sales were about 92% - 95% of sales, all upholstery was just 5% to 8%. Now that has reversed and the opposite is true. Interesting reversal!

The industry has a whole right now is very slow across the spectrum. All you have to do is talk to the owners of the freight companies to find out the pulse, they are getting less orders in across the spectrum from cheap to expensive, from wood to upholstery. So their delivery times will lengthen now as well because they need to have a full truck to a region. Everyone in the business things the slowdown the past three months is due to the election and bad weather in much of the country. Hopefully that will ease up soon.

I had a gentleman in the store today that used to be a customer, then he moved to the Decatur GA area several years ago. He said he likes my store so much that he wants to open a franchise in Georgia where he thinks it would do exceedingly well. I would not want to do a franchise, because its too difficult to keep control of standards and I'm too laid back to be an enforcement kind of guy and doing contracts and the like. However I told him if he wants to hang out his own shingle, I'll help him to do it on a consulting basis. We will see is that goes anywhere.....

Well, let me just tell you how much a dealer like you would be appreciated here in Minnesota!

I lived in St. Anthony and Burnsville MN from 4th through 6th grade. I still have vivid memories of my running my paper route in five foot snow drifts and mosquitos the size of hummingbirds in the summer time. I can't go north of the Mason Dixon line! Need Sun...need warmth!