Australian Furniture Industry: Ways To Increase The Demand For Furniture

The Instable Financial Markets’ Impact On Australian Furniture Industry

The 5 year period from 2010/11 – 2015/16 has been challenging for the Australian furniture industry due to large market changes. The industry numbers show incredibly small growth of industry revenue, only 1.4%. The instability of the global financial markets, that were shaking the entire world of economic trade, had a huge role in this situation by affecting the industry’s trading conditions. Moreover, the small, almost insignificant growth of incomes during this period, plus the concerns about the growing household debts, has additionally weakened the demand for furniture. Every Australian furniture store, as well as all manufacturers have suffered from this situation.

As part of the strategy for helping the furniture industry, the Australian Department of Industry has visited a few furniture manufacturers to see first-handed how hard are they hit by the new shattering market conditions, what are their get-out strategies are and how can the Department help. The Department’s conclusions are three major points:

  • furniture manufacturers need to increase the collaboration between themselves in order to gain more know-how and increase the efficiency of their operations;
  • concentrate more on the growing export markets;
  • develop new technology to increase the efficiency of overall manufacturing, distribution to the furniture store and retail strategies.

    • Some of the strategies the manufacturers have implemented include:

  • e-commerce; going online is a far better and easier way to be in touch with customers and know which item can be customized;
  • choosing a lower-cost country for shifting some of the manufacturing operations reduces a significant amount of business costs but puts a lot of pressure on logistics;
  • switching from manufacturing to importing is a way to adjust to import competition. With moving some of the manufacturing processes to lower-cost countries, the final product needs to be transported to the furniture store in a fast and efficient way while maintaining the high level of quality of the furniture.