DALLAS — Sunnyland Furniture, a Dallas-based outdoor furnishings retailer and Member of Nationwide Southwest, has already completed its buying for the 2022 season and is telling its salespeople to “promote doom and gloom when it comes to special orders and back orders.”
Sunnyland Furniture is addressing lead times and freight charges day-by-day to combat these challenges in the furniture industry. With long lead times, it could not afford to wait until September to complete its buying if it wanted product to arrive for the spring season.
“There doesn’t seem to be any improvements in the supply chain, and it appears things will only get worse for most vendors,” said Vice President Operations Brad Schweig. “Freight charges especially for overseas goods are very concerning as it has taken almost any value that was gained from buying containers.
“I tell our salespeople to promote doom and gloom when it comes to special orders and back orders,” he added. “It might cause them to lose a sale, but I’d rather lose a sale today than lose it in four months because their goods aren’t here and they were promised unrealistic lead times.”
Sunnyland visited all of its primary vendors in July ICFA Preview show and said that even placing orders during the July market was too late in some cases.
“Based on everything I have read about the furniture industry and the supply chain in general, I don’t foresee anything getting any better any time soon and would hope that more temporary vendors show in July next year,” Schweig said. “I never thought I would start quoting lead times in months instead of weeks, and I certainly never thought I would quote anything longer than three to six months … until we changed it to four to eight months.
“I never thought I would have to go longer than four to eight months, but with some of the lead times I am seeing now, I’m on the cusp of changing it to six to nine months.”