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3 days ago | 
businessofhome.com | Warren Shoulberg
On the heels of celebrating the one-year anniversary of its first large-format store, a 150,000-square-foot Chicagoland flagship, Wayfair has announced its next two physical locations, which will open in rapid succession and signal a stepped-up effort by the company to bring stores into its business model.
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6 days ago | 
therobinreport.com | Warren Shoulberg
First things first: Brian Cornell has been an incredible CEO at Target for most of his time leading the retail chain since he joined in 2014. People forget how lost Target was a decade ago and what Cornell did to rebuild the company and turn it into perhaps the best retailer in America for much of his stint. But that was then…and this is now.
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1 week ago | 
businessofhome.com | Warren Shoulberg
When it opened 20 years ago, HD Buttercup was one of the most innovative, creative and talked-about retailers in the home furnishings business. But in the decades since, the conversations have faded, and the store has gone through several changes in format as well as ownership and management. Soon, that talk will end completely: HD Buttercup is going out of business.
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2 weeks ago | 
businessofhome.com | Warren Shoulberg
With another 20 stores scheduled to join its current roster of 200 locations this year, and a continued push to cover more of the country, one has to ask: Is an IPO on the horizon for Bob’s Discount Furniture?
The furniture chain has been owned by the giant private equity firm Bain Capital since 2013, and while the company isn’t openly talking about going public, cashing out its investors through a public stock offering would seem like the next logical step.
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2 weeks ago | 
therobinreport.com | Warren Shoulberg
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. “It’s not exactly a big fat secret that department stores are becoming an endangered species. Once king of the retail world, their market share has been reduced to at best 2 percent according to recent estimates.
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3 weeks ago | 
giftsanddec.com | Warren Shoulberg
It’s still too early to say for sure, and as we all know things can change at the drop of a tweet, but right now the holiday shopping season is looking pretty scary for retailers and suppliers in the gift and home industry. As the industry starts its summer show season, all eyes – not to mention open-to-buy shopping lists – will be on tariffs. Things have been changing rapidly since the first tariff announcements and we never know what changes are still on the horizon.
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3 weeks ago | 
businessofhome.com | Warren Shoulberg
In less than three weeks Big Lots will complete the reopening of 219 stores, an astonishing feat given the discount retailer’s dismal recent past as an on-again, off-again off-pricer sliding into eventual bankruptcy.
But under new owner Variety Wholesalers, a privately held discount-chain holding company, Big Lots has been resurrected.
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3 weeks ago | 
therobinreport.com | Warren Shoulberg
The latest news that China and the U.S. have agreed to a 90-day ceasefire — albeit with tariff rates still substantially higher than before all of this started — has thrown the retail industry into yet another stage of panic as they scramble to see if they can get merchandise into stores (and consumer hands) for the holiday season. And if they can do it at tariff-impacted prices that may still be unacceptable to an increasingly shell-shocked shopper.
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1 month ago | 
businessofhome.com | Warren Shoulberg
In what will probably be the last financial quarter before the full effects of the Trump tariffs start to hit top and bottom lines, several big public furniture retailers are reporting results that show modest improvements. While nothing to cheer wildly about, they do show the home business could be getting better … or at least was heading in that direction until the tariffs hit the fan.
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1 month ago | 
businessofhome.com | Warren Shoulberg
This spring’s High Point Market is in the books, yet the aftershocks of what went on will reverberate throughout the furniture and home furnishings sector for months, seasons and most likely years to come.
Of course, it was all about tariffs. You couldn’t swing a dead credenza without hitting the topic: It immediately came up in every showroom meeting or chance encounter, and it spilled into the hallways and sidewalks of the Market complex.
